Em algumas ocasiões o uso de aparelhos é necessário para melhorar a audição de deficientes auditivos. Para melhorar a clareza das ligações telefônicas dessas pessoas, há interesse em aparelhos telefônicos que desempenham função semelhante aos aparelhos de audição (hearing aids), amplificando adequadamente o sinal recebido do outro lado da conexão. Um dos maiores problemas com tais aparelhos é que a malha fechada que inclui o retorno local na híbrida telefônica e o acoplamento acústico entre o alto-falante e o microfone do aparelho pode se tornar instável devido à introdução da amplificação, dando origem a microfonia. Uma abordagem típica deste problema nos aparelhos de audição é feita mediante o cancelamento adaptativo do eco acústico. No caso sendo considerado aqui, porém, também é possível eliminar a microfonia fazendo o cancelamento adaptativo do retorno local na híbrida, abordagem que é mais simples, devido à resposta impulsiva mais curta a ser compensada e sua menor variação temporal. Portanto, esta dissertação tem como objetivo o desenvolvimento de um cancelador de retorno local usando filtragem adaptativa para fins de impedir a microfonia num aparelho telefônico para deficientes auditivos. Para uma efetiva compensação de um determinado grau de deficiência auditiva, será visto que pode ser desejável em algum momento introduzir até uma certa quantidade de ganho em alguma frequência, sendo que a viabilidade disso depende da efetividade do cancelamento do retorno local, é definida uma medida de desempenho dos filtros adaptativos usados em termos da amplificação máxima que pode ser introduzida graças ao cancelamento do retorno local sem provocar microfonia. Considerando esta medida de desempenho, foi definido um objetivo de 55 dB de amplificação máxima a ser alcançado pelo cancelamento do retorno local. Verificamos então que o uso dos algoritmos LMS (least mean square), e-NLMS (normalized least mean square ) e RLS (recursive least squares) não alcança este objetivo com sinal de fala como entrada. Visto isto, a adaptação antes da conversação é avaliada com sinal branco gaussiano como entrada, acrescentando-se um filtro notch para eliminar o tom de discar. Os resultados mostram que o algoritmo LMS é suficiente para alcançar o objetivo mencionado. / On some occasions the use of apparatus are needed to improve the deafness of hearing impaired. To improve the clarity of the telephonic connections of these people, there is interest in telephone sets that exert similar function to the hearing aids, properly amplifying the received signal of the another side of the connection. One of the main problems with such apparatus is that the closed loop that includes local return in the telephone hybrid and acoustic coupling between the capsule and the microphone of the telephone set would become unstable due to the introduction of amplification, producing howling. A typical approach to this problem in hearing aids is made by the adaptive acoustic echo cancellation. In this case, however, it is also possible to eliminate howling by the adaptive local return cancellation in the hybrid, which is a simpler approach, due to shorter impulse response to be compensated and their lower temporal variation. Therefore, the goal of this dissertation is to develop a local return canceller using adaptive filtering for the purpose of preventing howling in a telephone set for hearing impaired. For an effective compensation of a certain degree of hearing impairment, it will be seen that it may be desirable at some point to introduce up to a certain amount of gain at some frequency. Whereas the viability of this depends on the effectiveness of the cancellation of the local return, a performance measure of used adaptive filters in terms of the maximum amplification which may be released due to the cancellation of the local return is defined without causing howling. Considering this performance measure was set a goal of 55 dB of maximum gain to be achieved by the local return cancelling. We verify then that the use of the LMS (least mean square), e-NLMS (normalized least mean square) and RLS (recursive least squares) algorithms doesn\'t attain this goal with speech signal as input. Therefore, adaptation before the conversation is evaluated, with white gaussian signal as input, adding a notch filter to eliminate the dial tone. The results show that the LMS algorithm is sufficient to achieve the mentioned goal.

Temporal envelope and periodicity components (TEPC) offer robust cues for speech recognition, even spectral information in the speech signal are not readily available. Many previous studies investigated the contribution of TEPC on speech recognition in English, but very few of them investigated the contribution of TEPC on tonal language and particularly on lexical tone recognition. Lexical tones encode lexical and grammatical meanings of words in tonal languages, and are essentially represented by the fundamental frequency and its low-order harmonics. Listeners with cochlear hearing loss have reduced frequency selectivity, causing much broader auditory filters than normal hearing listeners. Spectral cues in the speech signal are much reduced and hearing-impaired listeners have to rely more on TEPC for speech understanding. TEPC extracted from different frequency regions do not necessarily contribute equally for speech recognition. These frequency-specific TEPC contributions vary among different types of speech materials. Such investigation has not been conducted thoroughly for lexical tone yet. / This high frequency TEPC advantage maintained in conditions where the TEPC were carried in noise bands sharing the same frequency region as the frequency region where the TPEC were extracted, or in conditions where TEPC extracted from different frequency regions were carried by fixed high frequency noise bands, even when only a single noise band was used as the carrier. Consistent results were obtained using different lexical tone testing materials. TEPC extracted from the male voice than the female one consistently yielded better performance. Although hearing-impaired listeners performed not as good as their normal hearing peers, they were able to utilize the available TEPC information significantly particularly when TEPC from high frequencies were available. The high frequency TEPC advantage can be explained by the bandwidth of the carrier. Certain critical TEPC modulations for lexical tone recognition are believed to reside only in the high frequency regions but not the low frequency ones. Signal processing methods that can preserve or enhance TEPC in the high frequency regions in the speech signal may improve lexical tone recognition or even overall speech recognition of hearing-impaired listeners. / This research project was aimed at investigating the contribution of TEPC for lexical tone recognition in Cantonese which is a tonal language widely spoken in Chinese communities around the world. By comparing the contributions of TEPC extracted from different frequency regions on lexical tone recognition from a series of experiments, TEPC from high frequency regions always outperformed those from the low frequency regions, based on group analysis on closed-set corrected rationalized arcsine transformed scores, percentage of information transmission, and multidimensional scaling analysis; and on individual subject analysis on binomial distribution of proportion correct scores. / Yuen, Chi Pun. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-09, Section: B, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 255-262). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

Atualmente, a aplicabilidade de ferramentas de motivação tem se mostrado eficaz para encorajar o processo de mudança de comportamento. O objetivo deste estudo foi elaborar uma escala com base na University of Rhode Island Change Assessment Scale (URICA) para caracterização dos estágios motivacionais para a mudança para ser utilizada na população de indivíduos adultos e idosos com deficiência auditiva (DA). Participaram deste estudo: grupo piloto (GP): 17 usuários de Aparelhos de Amplificação Sonora Individual (AASI); grupo focal (GF): 9 usuários de AASI e 8 candidatos ao uso do AASI; grupo estudo (GE): 200 candidatos ao uso e usuários de AASI. Inicialmente foi realizada a adaptação da URICA para o uso com pacientes com DA que passou então pela apreciação de juízes. No GP, a partir da aplicação e compreensão dos pacientes sobre a escala, foram feitas as alterações pertinentes e encaminhada para a apreciação de um dos autores da escala original que sugeriu a revisão de alguns itens, assim como a realização de um grupo com pacientes para a construção de um instrumento que levasse em conta a percepção do paciente a partir de sua percepção e vivência com a deficiência. Com esta finalidade foi estabelecida a estratégia de GF para escolher afirmativas que mais faziam sentido aos pacientes em cada estágio vivenciado, resultando na versão final da escala, a qual foi aplicada no GE. A análise fatorial por meio da Análise dos Componentes Principais, o coeficiente alfa de Cronbach verificou a consistência interna do instrumento, a validação convergente do instrumento por meio da comparação com a Escala de Prontidão e a comparação dos dados referentes aos dados demográficos, deficiência auditiva e AASI dos pacientes com a escala, adotando 5% de nível de significância. Após a Análise dos Componentes Principais e o coeficiente de Cronbach a escala foi reduzida de 34 para 25 itens, tendo boa consistência interna (0,813) e agrupando melhor em 3 fatores, havendo o agrupamento dos estágios de ação-manutenção e de contemplação-preparação, tendo a pré-contemplação uma boa discriminação. A maioria dos candidatos ao uso de AASI encontram-se nos estágios de contemplação e preparação e os usuários de AASI em ação. A validação convergente indicou que apesar da correlação fraca o p foi estatisticamente significante nos 5 estágios. Quando comparados os estágios entre si, verificou-se correlação significante entre os estágios de contemplação e preparação, ação e manutenção e pré-contemplação e preparação. Quanto à validade preditiva da escala, houve diferença significante entre o tempo de uso do AASI e os estágios de contemplação, ação e manutenção, entre o grau da deficiência auditiva e o estágio de manutenção, entre o tipo do AASI no estágio de manutenção, entre a escolaridade e os estágios de contemplação e preparação e entre a classificação socioeconômica e os estágios de pré-contemplação e preparação. É importante a realização de outros estudos para aprimorar o instrumento a fim de que o mesmo adquira melhor dimensão fatorial. / Currently, the applicability of motivation tools has been effective in encouraging the process of behavioral change. This study aimed at developing a scale based on the University of Rhode Island Change Assessment Scale (URICA) to characterize the motivational stages of change to be used in the population of adults and elderly people presented with hearing impairment (HI). The study comprised: pilot group (PG): 17 users of hearing aids (HA); focal group (FG): 9 users of HA and 8 candidates for HA; study group (SG): 200 candidates for HA. Initially, URICA was adapted to assess patients presented with HI, being appreciated by the judges. In PG, from the application and comprehension of the patients on the scale, appropriate amendments were made and sent to one of the authors of the original scale who suggested that some items be reviewed, as well as a study with a group of patients so as create a tool which took into account the perception of the patient, from his/her perception while dealing with the impairment. Thus, the FG strategy was established so as to choose statements which made more sense to patients in each stage experienced, resulting in the final version of the scale, which was applied to SG. The factorial analysis through Main Components Analysis, Cronbachs alpha coefficient, verified the internal consistence of the tool, the convergent validation of the instrument through comparison with the Readiness Scale and the comparison of demographic data, hearing impairment and HA of patients with the scale, by adopting a 5% significance level. Following the analysis of the Main Components and Cronbachs coefficient, the scale was reduced from 34 to 25 items, with a good internal consistency (0.813) and better grouping into 3 factors: stages of action-maintenance, contemplation-preparation, pre-contemplation having a good discrimination. Most candidates for HA are in the stages of contemplation and preparation and the users of HA, action. Convergent validation indicated that despite the weak correlation, p was statistically significant in the 5 stages. When compared, the stages showed a significant correlation in the contemplation and preparation, action and maintenance and pre-contemplation and preparation. As to the predictive validity of the scale, there was a significant difference between the time of HA use and the stages of contemplation, action and maintenance, between the degree of hearing impairment and the stage of maintenance, between the type of HA and the stage of maintenance, between education and the stages of contemplation and preparation and between the socio-economic classification and the stages of precontemplation and preparation. Further studies to improve the tool and provide it with a better factorial dimension, are necessary.

Em algumas ocasiões o uso de aparelhos é necessário para melhorar a audição de deficientes auditivos. Para melhorar a clareza das ligações telefônicas dessas pessoas, há interesse em aparelhos telefônicos que desempenham função semelhante aos aparelhos de audição (hearing aids), amplificando adequadamente o sinal recebido do outro lado da conexão. Um dos maiores problemas com tais aparelhos é que a malha fechada que inclui o retorno local na híbrida telefônica e o acoplamento acústico entre o alto-falante e o microfone do aparelho pode se tornar instável devido à introdução da amplificação, dando origem a microfonia. Uma abordagem típica deste problema nos aparelhos de audição é feita mediante o cancelamento adaptativo do eco acústico. No caso sendo considerado aqui, porém, também é possível eliminar a microfonia fazendo o cancelamento adaptativo do retorno local na híbrida, abordagem que é mais simples, devido à resposta impulsiva mais curta a ser compensada e sua menor variação temporal. Portanto, esta dissertação tem como objetivo o desenvolvimento de um cancelador de retorno local usando filtragem adaptativa para fins de impedir a microfonia num aparelho telefônico para deficientes auditivos. Para uma efetiva compensação de um determinado grau de deficiência auditiva, será visto que pode ser desejável em algum momento introduzir até uma certa quantidade de ganho em alguma frequência, sendo que a viabilidade disso depende da efetividade do cancelamento do retorno local, é definida uma medida de desempenho dos filtros adaptativos usados em termos da amplificação máxima que pode ser introduzida graças ao cancelamento do retorno local sem provocar microfonia. Considerando esta medida de desempenho, foi definido um objetivo de 55 dB de amplificação máxima a ser alcançado pelo cancelamento do retorno local. Verificamos então que o uso dos algoritmos LMS (least mean square), e-NLMS (normalized least mean square ) e RLS (recursive least squares) não alcança este objetivo com sinal de fala como entrada. Visto isto, a adaptação antes da conversação é avaliada com sinal branco gaussiano como entrada, acrescentando-se um filtro notch para eliminar o tom de discar. Os resultados mostram que o algoritmo LMS é suficiente para alcançar o objetivo mencionado. / On some occasions the use of apparatus are needed to improve the deafness of hearing impaired. To improve the clarity of the telephonic connections of these people, there is interest in telephone sets that exert similar function to the hearing aids, properly amplifying the received signal of the another side of the connection. One of the main problems with such apparatus is that the closed loop that includes local return in the telephone hybrid and acoustic coupling between the capsule and the microphone of the telephone set would become unstable due to the introduction of amplification, producing howling. A typical approach to this problem in hearing aids is made by the adaptive acoustic echo cancellation. In this case, however, it is also possible to eliminate howling by the adaptive local return cancellation in the hybrid, which is a simpler approach, due to shorter impulse response to be compensated and their lower temporal variation. Therefore, the goal of this dissertation is to develop a local return canceller using adaptive filtering for the purpose of preventing howling in a telephone set for hearing impaired. For an effective compensation of a certain degree of hearing impairment, it will be seen that it may be desirable at some point to introduce up to a certain amount of gain at some frequency. Whereas the viability of this depends on the effectiveness of the cancellation of the local return, a performance measure of used adaptive filters in terms of the maximum amplification which may be released due to the cancellation of the local return is defined without causing howling. Considering this performance measure was set a goal of 55 dB of maximum gain to be achieved by the local return cancelling. We verify then that the use of the LMS (least mean square), e-NLMS (normalized least mean square) and RLS (recursive least squares) algorithms doesn\'t attain this goal with speech signal as input. Therefore, adaptation before the conversation is evaluated, with white gaussian signal as input, adding a notch filter to eliminate the dial tone. The results show that the LMS algorithm is sufficient to achieve the mentioned goal.

Students with mild to moderate hearing losses, and some with severe hearing losses, are mainstreamed in a regular classroom for all or part of the day (Martin, Berstein, Daly & Cody, 1988). While these students may require special education services, the classroom teacher plays a vital role in the overall education and daily management of a child with a hearing impairment (Hass, 1987). Villa (1989) reported that many school employees have not received adequate training to educate these students. Therefore, it becomes the school's responsibility to educate teachers through a comprehensive inservice training program. One format for providing such a program is a self-directed inservice program. This approach can be utilized as a cost-effective means of meeting the professional needs of educators, although little is known regarding its' effectiveness to train teachers about the needs of students with hearing impairments. To address the effectiveness of a self-directed inservice approach, a comprehensive self-directed inservice program which provides information about hearing loss, behavior manifestations of children with hearing impairment, hearing aid maintenance, and mainstreaming was developed. This program was designed to educate teachers about the classroom needs of students with hearing impairment. A group of 20 teachers were randomly assigned to either the experimental group, which received the inservice program or control group, who read a brief article. A post test was administered to both groups, and the experimental group also answered a questionnaire regarding the inservice program. The results revealed a significant difference in the basic knowledge of regular education teachers about the classroom needs of students with hearing impairments for those receiving the program. This suggests that a self-directed inservice program is a viable method of educating teachers about the needs of students with hearing impairments.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a 500 Hz and 3,150 Hz one-third octave band augmentation on the speech discrimination ability of listeners with cochlear hearing impairments. The results were analyzed both within the experimental group of subjects included in the present study and in comparison with data collected on a control group of normal hearing subjects reported earlier.

It is important that educators use adequate assessment procedures when placing hearing-impaired children in mainstreamed settings. Receptive vocabulary tests are part of the standardized test battery and can provide educators with valuable information. Although there has been a receptive vocabulary test recently developed for use with hearing-impaired children (CPVT), the most commonly used test with this population is the PPVT-R, which is standardized on normally hearing children. In order to further explore the difference between the receptive vocabulary of hearing-impaired and normally hearing children, a test standardized on hearing-impaired should be used. The purpose of the present study was to determine if a difference exists between the receptive vocabulary scores of hearing-impaired and normally hearing children on the CPVT. This study also sought to answer the following questions: 1) What is the correlation between the CPVT and the PPVT-R?, and 2) Is there a difference between the z-scores and age equivalent scores of the normally hearing children on the CPVT and the PPVT-R? Fifty 7- and a-year olds were selected from the Portland Metropolitan area as subjects. Each subject passed a puretone audiometric screening, had a negative history of ear infections, had not received any speech, language, hearing, or reading services, and received parental permission to be in the study. Mean z-scores and age equivalent scores on the CPVT and the PPVT-R were computed for the normally hearing subjects in the study. One sample, two tailed ~-tests were computed to determine if a difference exists between the performance of the normally hearing subjects on the CPVT and the normative data for the hearing-impaired. The tests were considered significant at the .05 level. A highly significant difference was found between the z-scores and age equivalent scores of the 7- and a-year old normally hearing subjects and the normative data for the hearing impaired. The normally hearing subjects scored higher on the CPVT than the standardized data. These results are consistent with previous research that has shown hearing impaired children to perform significantly lower than their normally hearing peers on vocabulary tests (Bunch & Forde, 1987; Davis, 1974; Markides, 1970). Pearson r correlations were used to determine the relationship between the CPVT and the PPVT-R. Weak correlations were obtained between the two tests for the 7- and a-year old subjects. Kline and Sapp (1989) also found a weak correlation between the CPVT and the WISC-R. One sample, two tailed t-tests were completed to determine if a difference exists between the z-scores and age equivalent scores of the 7- and a-year old normally hearing subjects on the CPVT and the PPVT-R. The age equivalent scores of the 7- and a-year old subjects were found to be higher on the CPVT than on the PPVT-R. A statistically significant difference between the z-scores of the a year old subjects was not found.

<p><strong>SAMMANFATTNING </strong></p><p>Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur svenska ungdomar med cochleaimplantat (CI) identifierar sig själva i förhållande till döva, hörselskadade och hörande. För att uppnå studiens syfte utgår den från följande frågeställningar:</p><p>• Hur uppfattar ungdomarna sitt CI?</p><p>• Vilket språk uppfattar CI-bärande ungdomar som sitt första språk?</p><p>• Hur tror CI-bärande ungdomar att döva, hörselskadade och hörande ser på dem?</p><p>Studien är en deskriptiv, kvalitativ och fenomenologisk analys för att fånga upp individers egna upplevelser kring CI. Sex ungdomar i åldrarna 16-20 år och som använt CI i några år valdes ut. Ungdomarna gick i teckenspråkiga, hörsel och integrerade klasser. De intervjuades med hjälp av en intervjuguide.</p><p>Resultatet visar att de flesta CI-bärande ungdomar identifierar sig närmast som hörselskadade. CI ger dem möjlighet att välja mellan att vara döv eller hörselskadad och utgör ett bra stöd i olika vardagssituationer. Svårigheten att placera in CI-ungdomar i någon existerande grupp antyder att de förmodligen tillhör en ny identitetsgrupp, en CI-identitetsgrupp. Intervjupersonernas förstaspråk uppges av några vara talspråk, av andra teckenspråk. Intervjupersonerna upplever att döva, hörande och hörselskadade betraktar dem att som döva, hörande eller hörselskadade. Omgivningens uppfattning av CI-bärande ungdomar skiljer sig ofta från hur de uppfattar sig själva.</p> / <p><strong></strong><strong>ABSTRACT </strong></p><p>The purpose of the study is to examine how Swedish youth with Cochlear Implants (CI) identify themselves in relation to deaf, hearing impaired and hearing people. In order to answer the purpose of this study, these questions have been used as starting-points:</p><p>• How does young people look at their CI?</p><p>• What language does CI-bearing young people recognize as their first language?</p><p>• How does CI-bearing young people believe deaf, hearing impaired and hearing persons look at them?</p><p>The study is a descriptive, qualitative, and phenomenological analysis to capture the individuals' own experiences around the CI. Six young persons over 15 years, who have been using CI in some years were selected. They were attending sign language, hearing, and integrated classes. They were interviewed using an interview guide.</p><p>The result shows that most CI-bearing young people identify themselves closest  to the hearing impaired group. CI allows them to choose between being deaf or hearing-impaired and is a good support in various everyday situations. The difficulty to place CI youth in any existing group suggests that they probably belong to a new identity group, a CI group identity. Interview subjects first language are by some persons reported to be the spoken language, while others report sign language. Interview subjects feel that deaf, hearing and hearing-impaired people relate to them as hearing, hearing-impaired or deaf persons. The social environment´s perception of CI-bearing young people often differ from how they perceive themselves.</p><p> </p><p> </p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Iowa, 2006. / Supervisor: J. Bruce Tomblin. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 118-129).

SAMMANFATTNING Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur svenska ungdomar med cochleaimplantat (CI) identifierar sig själva i förhållande till döva, hörselskadade och hörande. För att uppnå studiens syfte utgår den från följande frågeställningar: • Hur uppfattar ungdomarna sitt CI? • Vilket språk uppfattar CI-bärande ungdomar som sitt första språk? • Hur tror CI-bärande ungdomar att döva, hörselskadade och hörande ser på dem? Studien är en deskriptiv, kvalitativ och fenomenologisk analys för att fånga upp individers egna upplevelser kring CI. Sex ungdomar i åldrarna 16-20 år och som använt CI i några år valdes ut. Ungdomarna gick i teckenspråkiga, hörsel och integrerade klasser. De intervjuades med hjälp av en intervjuguide. Resultatet visar att de flesta CI-bärande ungdomar identifierar sig närmast som hörselskadade. CI ger dem möjlighet att välja mellan att vara döv eller hörselskadad och utgör ett bra stöd i olika vardagssituationer. Svårigheten att placera in CI-ungdomar i någon existerande grupp antyder att de förmodligen tillhör en ny identitetsgrupp, en CI-identitetsgrupp. Intervjupersonernas förstaspråk uppges av några vara talspråk, av andra teckenspråk. Intervjupersonerna upplever att döva, hörande och hörselskadade betraktar dem att som döva, hörande eller hörselskadade. Omgivningens uppfattning av CI-bärande ungdomar skiljer sig ofta från hur de uppfattar sig själva. / ABSTRACT The purpose of the study is to examine how Swedish youth with Cochlear Implants (CI) identify themselves in relation to deaf, hearing impaired and hearing people. In order to answer the purpose of this study, these questions have been used as starting-points: • How does young people look at their CI? • What language does CI-bearing young people recognize as their first language? • How does CI-bearing young people believe deaf, hearing impaired and hearing persons look at them? The study is a descriptive, qualitative, and phenomenological analysis to capture the individuals' own experiences around the CI. Six young persons over 15 years, who have been using CI in some years were selected. They were attending sign language, hearing, and integrated classes. They were interviewed using an interview guide. The result shows that most CI-bearing young people identify themselves closest  to the hearing impaired group. CI allows them to choose between being deaf or hearing-impaired and is a good support in various everyday situations. The difficulty to place CI youth in any existing group suggests that they probably belong to a new identity group, a CI group identity. Interview subjects first language are by some persons reported to be the spoken language, while others report sign language. Interview subjects feel that deaf, hearing and hearing-impaired people relate to them as hearing, hearing-impaired or deaf persons. The social environment´s perception of CI-bearing young people often differ from how they perceive themselves.