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Biomedical subjects

D K Kessler

Publications and source records attributed to D K Kessler.

21 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Interim assessment of candidates for cochlear implants.

The Minimal Auditory Capabilities battery was administered to patients with profound postlingual sensorineural hearing loss to obtain interim audiometric indices on the relative benefits of cochlear implants and hearing aids. One group used a cochlear implant comprising a multielectrode array and a single-channel stimulator, another group wore hearing aids, with only borderline satisfaction, and the third group wore hearing aids to good advantage. Scores for the latter group were consistently higher than the borderline group on two prosodic tests, but the borderline group scored better on closed-set spondee and vowel recognition tests. Scores were essentially the same for the two groups on the remaining tests. Tentative criteria induces were applied to members of the borderline group in terms of the hearing improvement that might be anticipated from an implant.

Adult↗

Analysis and revision of the minimal auditory capabilities (MAC) battery.

The Minimal Auditory Capabilities (MAC) Battery was administered individually to 75 hearing aid users with profound sensorineural hearing loss. The purposes of the study were (1) to determine the reliability of the individual tests, their range of difficulty, and their intercorrelations; (2) to undertake a standardization procedure based on data from this population; and (3) to assess the need for revisions. Difficulty ranged gradually from a mean score of 86% correct for the Spondee Same/Different test to a mean of 16% for the NU 6 monosyllabic word test. Alpha estimates of reliability were 0.89 or higher for all but the Everyday Sounds test (0.85), the Question/Statement test (0.83), and the Spondee Same/Different test (0.81). Along with the reliability and range of difficulty results, interest correlations provided no indication that any of the tests should be discarded. In the standardization of the MAC, the mean score correct on each test was set at 100 and the standard deviation at 10. Prepared tables for immediate conversion of a raw score to a standardized score for any test are included in an Appendix. Among revisions, also listed in the Appendix, the CID Everyday Sentences test was reduced to 20 items from 40, the SPIN High-Context Sentences were assigned key words, and the assessment of distinctive feature identification was discontinued.

Adult↗