Die Lokalisationsfähigkeit schwerhöriger Schulkinder mit und ohne Hörgeräte

Zusammenfassung

Hintergrund Die Richtungslokalisation ist eine Teilleistung der zentralen auditiven Verarbeitung. Es wurde der Frage nachgegangen, ob das Tragen von Hörgeräten die Lokalisationsfähigkeit von nichtsprachlichen Stimuli bei schwerhörigen Schulkindern unterstützt.

Patienten und Methoden 20 Kinder (7–17 Jahre) mit einer beidseitigen, symmetrischen, mittelgradigen peripheren Schallempfindungsschwerhörigkeit (WHO-Grad 2) wurden im Freifeld mit und ohne Hinter-dem-Ohr-Hörgeräte (HG) untersucht. Alle Probanden trugen HG mit individuellen Passstücken. Die Aufgabe war, die Position überschwelliger akustischer Signale im Freifeld mithilfe eines Laserpointers innerhalb einer halbkreisförmigen Anordnung von 45 Lautsprechern anzuzeigen. Es wurden jeweils tief- und hochfrequente Stimuli getestet, um den Einfluss von interauralen Zeit- und Pegelunterschieden auf die Verarbeitung unterscheiden zu können. Die Ergebnisse wurden mit denen normalhörender Kinder verglichen.

Ergebnisse In unserem Testaufbau gab es keinen signifikanten Unterschied zwischen der Messung mit und ohne HG, weder für die unterschiedlichen Frequenzbänder noch für die unterschiedlichen getesteten Positionen. Die absolute Abweichung der schwerhörigen Kinder war um 3–4° frontal und 5–11° lateral schlechter als die hörgesunder Kinder. Wie auch normalhörende Schulkinder konnten die schwerhörigen Schulkinder frontale Positionen signifikant besser lokalisieren als laterale. Ebenso zeigte sich keine Altersentwicklung der Lokalisationsfähigkeit.

Schlussfolgerung In unserem Testaufbau konnten HG die schlechtere Lokalisationsfähigkeit schwerhöriger Kinder nicht ausgleichen.

Abstract

Objective Auditory localisation is part of central auditory processing. The study examined the impact of hearing aids on the auditory localisation ability of non-linguistic stimuli in hearing impaired schoolchildren.

Patients and methods Above threshold acoustic signals were presented to 20 children (7–17 years) in a free field condition with 45 loudspeakers placed on a semicircular array. All participants had a bilaterally symmetric moderate sensorineural hearing loss (WHO grade 2) and used behind the ear style (BTE) hearing aids with conventional earmolds. The children had to indicate the position of the signal by a laser pointer. Both high- and low-frequency noise bursts were employed in the tests to separately address spatial auditory processing based on interaural time differences and interaural intensity differences. The examination was performed with and without BTE hearing aids.

Results There was no significant difference between results in the aided and the unaided condition: neither for the different frequency bands nor for the signal positions. The auditory localisation of the hearing impaired children was reduced by 3°–4° for frontal and 5°–11° for lateral positions compared to normal-hearing children. There was no age-relation.

Conclusions In our experimental setting, BTE hearing aids could not compensate the impaired auditory localisation ability of children with sensorineural hearing loss.

Schlüsselwörter

Richtungslokalisation - Kinder - Hörgeräte - Schallempfindungsschwerhörigkeit - nichtsprachliche Stimuli - überschwellig

Key words

auditory localisation - children - hearing aids - sensorineural hearing loss - non-linguistic stimuli - above threshold

Publication History

Received: 09 April 2020

Accepted: 12 May 2020

Article published online:
05 June 2020

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