Musical Training for Auditory Rehabilitation in Hearing Loss

Effectiveness of rhythmic training on linguistics skill development in deaf children and adolescents with cochlear implants: A systematic review

OBJECTIVE

This review compiles the scientific evidence to date on the effectiveness of musical/rhythmic training for improving and/or enhancing the development of language skills in deaf children aged 6-16 years with cochlear implants.

METHODS

PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Web of Science were used for the research following the PRISMA protocol.

RESULTS

The reviewed studies indicate that rhythmic training can improve language skills (perception, production, and comprehension) in this population, as well as in other cognitive skills.

CONCLUSION

Although further research is still needed, the current evidence can help identify new and more effective early intervention methods for deaf children.

Processing rhythm in speech and music: Shared mechanisms and implications for developmental speech and language disorders

OBJECTIVE

Music and speech are complex signals containing regularities in how they unfold in time. Similarities between music and speech/language in terms of their auditory features, rhythmic structure, and hierarchical structure have led to a large body of literature suggesting connections between the two domains. However, the precise underlying mechanisms behind this connection remain to be elucidated.

METHOD

In this theoretical review article, we synthesize previous research and present a framework of potentially shared neural mechanisms for music and speech rhythm processing. We outline structural similarities of rhythmic signals in music and speech, synthesize prominent music and speech rhythm theories, discuss impaired timing in developmental speech and language disorders, and discuss music rhythm training as an additional, potentially effective therapeutic tool to enhance speech/language processing in these disorders.

RESULTS

We propose the processing rhythm in speech and music (PRISM) framework, which outlines three underlying mechanisms that appear to be shared across music and speech/language processing: Precise auditory processing, synchronization/entrainment of neural oscillations to external stimuli, and sensorimotor coupling. The goal of this framework is to inform directions for future research that integrate cognitive and biological evidence for relationships between rhythm processing in music and speech.

CONCLUSION

The current framework can be used as a basis to investigate potential links between observed timing deficits in developmental disorders, impairments in the proposed mechanisms, and pathology-specific deficits which can be targeted in treatment and training supporting speech therapy outcomes. On these grounds, we propose future research directions and discuss implications of our framework. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Rapid Assessment of Non-Verbal Auditory Perception in Normal-Hearing Participants and Cochlear Implant Users

In the case of hearing loss, cochlear implants (CI) allow for the restoration of hearing. Despite the advantages of CIs for speech perception, CI users still complain about their poor perception of their auditory environment. Aiming to assess non-verbal auditory perception in CI users, we developed five listening tests. These tests measure pitch change detection, pitch direction identification, pitch short-term memory, auditory stream segregation, and emotional prosody recognition, along with perceived intensity ratings. In order to test the potential benefit of visual cues for pitch processing, the three pitch tests included half of the trials with visual indications to perform the task. We tested 10 normal-hearing (NH) participants with material being presented as original and vocoded sounds, and 10 post-lingually deaf CI users. With the vocoded sounds, the NH participants had reduced scores for the detection of small pitch differences, and reduced emotion recognition and streaming abilities compared to the original sounds. Similarly, the CI users had deficits for small differences in the pitch change detection task and emotion recognition, as well as a decreased streaming capacity. Overall, this assessment allows for the rapid detection of specific patterns of non-verbal auditory perception deficits. The current findings also open new perspectives about how to enhance pitch perception capacities using visual cues.

Musicians Show Improved Speech Segregation in Competitive, Multi-Talker Cocktail Party Scenarios

Studies suggest that long-term music experience enhances the brain’s ability to segregate speech from noise. Musicians’ “speech-in-noise (SIN) benefit” is based largely on perception from simple figure-ground tasks rather than competitive, multi-talker scenarios that offer realistic spatial cues for segregation and engage binaural processing. We aimed to investigate whether musicians show perceptual advantages in cocktail party speech segregation in a competitive, multi-talker environment. We used the coordinate response measure (CRM) paradigm to measure speech recognition and localization performance in musicians vs. non-musicians in a simulated 3D cocktail party environment conducted in an anechoic chamber. Speech was delivered through a 16-channel speaker array distributed around the horizontal soundfield surrounding the listener. Participants recalled the color, number, and perceived location of target callsign sentences. We manipulated task difficulty by varying the number of additional maskers presented at other spatial locations in the horizontal soundfield (0–1–2–3–4–6–8 multi-talkers). Musicians obtained faster and better speech recognition amidst up to around eight simultaneous talkers and showed less noise-related decline in performance with increasing interferers than their non-musician peers. Correlations revealed associations between listeners’ years of musical training and CRM recognition and working memory. However, better working memory correlated with better speech streaming. Basic (QuickSIN) but not more complex (speech streaming) SIN processing was still predicted by music training after controlling for working memory. Our findings confirm a relationship between musicianship and naturalistic cocktail party speech streaming but also suggest that cognitive factors at least partially drive musicians’ SIN advantage.