Test results obtained with Dichotic Consonant-Vowel (CV) test materials are reported for 50 normal subjects as well as for a total of 67 patients who underwent removal of the anterior portion of the right or left temporal lobe for control of seizures. All patients were tested before and after surgery. Results demonstrated that not all patients with temporal lobe seizures with subsequent temporal lobectomy demonstrated performance below the lower limits of normal established by the sample of normal subjects. Comparison of Dichotic CV and Staggered Spondaic Word test results is made on a subset of the patient population.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Comparison of monaural and binaural hearing aid use on a trial period basis.

Thirty hearing-impaired patients compared monaural and binaural hearing aid use for a period of 4 weeks. Most of them preferred binaural hearing aids in quiet situations, but monaural hearing aids in noisy environments. Follow-up at 6 months revealed that 17 had purchased monaural hearing aids, 8 had purchased binaural hearing aids.

Consumer Behavior↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Masking level differences for cochlear and brain stem lesions.

Masking level differences (MLD) for 500 Hz pure tones and for spondees were obtained from 48 subjects. Twelve were without otologic or neurologic complaints (normal), 12 had high frequency, noise-induced hearing losses, 12 were diagnosed otologically as having Ménière's disorder, and 12 had neurologically diagnosed central nervous system (CNS) disorders. Results indicated that high frequency, noise-induced hearing losses do not affect MLD for 500 Hz stimuli, but do diminish the size of MLD for speech. Masking level differences for both 500 Hz and spondees were decreased for the Ménière's disorder group. The group of patients having CNS disorders attributed to multiple sclerosis, to inflammatory lesion of the pons, to degenerative processes of the cerebellum and adjacent nervous tissue, or to brain stem cerebrovascular accident had normal hearing according to conventional pure tone and speech testing, but attained smaller than normal MLD for 500 Hz and spondees. These findings agree closely with results obtained in an earlier study and continue to suggest that, given normal peripheral auditory function, MLD tests may have unique value in detection of subtle lesions of the central auditory nervous system.

Auditory Perception↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Speech discrimination in quiet and in white noise by patients with peripheral and central lesions.

Speech-discrimination scores in quiet and in white noise (O dB S/N ratio) were obtained from six groups of subjects. Differences of 40% or more between scores in quiet and in white noise were observed for less than 1% of the normal ears tested but were found for 8.0% of ears with noise trauma, 48% of ears with Meniere's disease, 62% of ears with subsequently surgically confirmed 8th-nerve tumors, 14% of ears of patients with multiple sclerosis, and 42% of ears contralateral to the lesion in patients with temporal-lobe damage.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Masking level differences encountered in clinical populations.

Methods for measuring masking level differences (MLDs) at 500 Hz and for spondees were used with 290 subjects: 50 persons with normal hearing and 240 patients with various diseases. Of particular interest was whether techniques currently in clinical use could be used with ease, dispatch, and profit in determining MLD size. The methods selected, which were variations of Békésy audiometry and speech reception threshold procedures, proved clinically feasible. Results revealed differences in behavior from one group of subjects to another. Although MLDs were not affected by cortical lesions, they were very often abnormally small for patients with eight-nerve tumor, Meniére's disease, or multiple sclerosis. The high incidence of abnormally small MLDs in populations with normal sensitivity to pure tones and speech but with evidence of subcortical central lesions, such as patients with multiple sclerosis, suggests that the MLD tasks can be of diagnostic value in detecting retrocochlear lesions. However, in persons with hearing loss or significant interaural differences in threshold sensitivity, or both, the MLD tests are not always reliable in differentiating cochlear from retrocochlear disease.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Acoustic reflex decay.

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Cranial Nerve Neoplasms↗