Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the effects of earphone usage on extended high-frequency (EHF) hearing thresholds and speech-in-noise perception in young adults with normal hearing. Methods: Forty-seven participants aged 19~26 years with normal hearing were divided into three groups based on daily earphone usage: low (<1 hour/day), medium (1~3 hours/day), and high (>3 hours/day). Participants completed questionnaire on earphone use, conventional audiometry, EHF audiometry (9~20 kHz), and speech perception in noise tests at 5, 0, and -5 dB signal to noise ratio (SNR). Results: The high-use group showed significantly elevated hearing thresholds at 12.5, 14, and 16 kHz in the right ear and at 10 kHz in the left ear compared with the medium-use group (p < 0.05). Furthermore, the high-use group demonstrated poorer sentence recognition accuracy under -5 dB SNR compared with the low-use group (p < 0.05). Correlation analyses revealed that elevated thresholds at 16, 18, and 20 kHz in the right ear and 10 kHz and 14 kHz in the left ear were negatively associated with speech-in-noise accuracy (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Prolonged earphone use is associated with EHF hearing loss and reduced speech-in-noise perception, highlighting the need for auditory health education and preventive strategies. It means that the extended high frequency hearing loss may be a clinical index for predicting hearing change after earphone use.
Purpose: This study compared reading and writing performance between older adults with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and non-amnestic mild cognitive impairment (naMCI), and examined whether frontal-executive functions were associated with task performance. Methods: Twenty-two older adults participated: 11 with aMCI and 11 with naMCI. Reading tasks included regular words, irregular words, regular nonwords, and irregular nonwords from the Korean Languagebased Reading Assessment (KOLRA), as well as irregular word and nonword reading tasks from the Paradise·Korean version of the Western Aphasia Battery-Revised (PK-WAB-R). Writing was assessed using irregular word and nonword dictation tasks from the PK-WAB-R. Frontal-executive functions were evaluated using semantic and phonemic verbal fluency, the Korean-Color Word Stroop Test, and the Korean-Trail Making Test for the Elderly. Group differences were analyzed using Mann-Whitney U-tests, and Spearman correlations were conducted for tasks showing significant group differences. Results: Compared with the naMCI group, the aMCI group showed significantly poorer performance on irregular nonword reading (KOLRA) and irregular word reading and writing (PKWAB-R). In the overall MCI group, irregular nonword reading was positively correlated with Stroop word reading, irregular word reading was correlated with semantic verbal fluency, and irregular word writing was correlated with Stroop word/color reading and semantic verbal fluency. Conclusion: Older adults with aMCI showed selective impairment in linguistically demanding reading and writing tasks requiring irregularity processing. These findings suggest that such tasks rely not only on lexical processing but also on frontal-executive control, and may serve as sensitive indicators of languagerelated vulnerability in aMCI.
This scoping review examined studies on auditory training in noise for children with auditory processing disorder (APD). The aim was to analyze the characteristics of training interventions, task types, outcome measures, and reported effects, while identifying methodological trends and limitations in the literature. A systematic search was conducted to identify studies involving speechin- noise training in children diagnosed with APD and 10 studies met the inclusion criteria. Data were extracted on participant characteristics, training methods, task types, training intensity and duration, outcome measures, effects, and reported limitations. Most studies used computer-based auditory training, while one employed traditional face-to-face intervention. Training tasks mainly targeted selective attention to target speech and speech perception in noisy environments, often incorporating adaptive difficulty and audiovisual cues. Outcomes were primarily measured using behavioral speech-in-noise tests, with some studies also including electrophysiological measures and subjective reports from parents or teachers. Most studies reported statistically significant improvements in speech-in-noise perception after training. However, the magnitude, consistency, and persistence of these effects varied. Only three studies examined retention effects and long-term maintenance was limited in some areas. Common limitations included small sample sizes, heterogeneity in diagnostic criteria and training protocols, and insufficient long-term follow-up. Overall, auditory training in noise appears to have positive effects on speech perception in children with APD. However, methodological variability across studies warrants cautious interpretation. Future research should focus on standardized diagnostic frameworks, systematic training protocols, and long-term follow-up to support evidence-based clinical guidelines.
This study aimed to evaluate the accuracy of the multilingual automatic speech recognition (ASR) model Whisper large-v3 (OpenAI, San Francisco, CA, USA) in recognizing isolated Korean monosyllables (consonant-vowel and consonant-vowel-consonant structures) produced by two older adults with sensorineural hearing loss, using expert audiologists as the perceptual reference standard. Two older Korean adults (87-year-old male, 78-year-old female) each produced 130 Korean monosyllables. Four audiologists independently transcribed the tokens under blinded conditions. The same audio files were processed using Whisper large-v3 (OpenAI) in an offline environment with Korean language settings. Phoneme-level accuracy, inter-rater agreement, and error patterns were compared across raters, speakers, and phoneme categories. Audiologist transcription showed moderate agreement (mean accuracy: 59.7% for S-001 and 61.7% for S-002; perfect agreement: 55.4% and 62.0%, respectively), reflecting variability in elderly speech perception. In contrast, Whisper demonstrated substantially lower accuracy (13.1% and 13.8%), with high error rates. Errors were primarily observed in specific phoneme categories, including tense consonants, fricatives, liquids, and mid-front vowels, whereas nasals and high vowels were relatively preserved. Whisper did not achieve higher transcription accuracy than audiologists for any monosyllable tested. Whisper large-v3 (OpenAI) shows substantially lower performance than human audiologists in phoneme-level transcription of Korean monosyllables produced by older adults with sensorineural hearing loss. These findings suggest that general-purpose ASR systems have limited clinical applicability in this population and should currently be considered as assistive tools rather than replacements for expert evaluation. Further development, including elderly- and Korean-specific model adaptation, is required.
Purpose: This study investigated the effects of a mapping therapy program on sentence comprehension, sentence production, and spontaneous speech in adults with Broca’s aphasia. Methods: Four adults with moderate to severe Broca’s aphasia participated in a single-subject design study consisting of a pre-assessment, 16 therapy sessions, and a post-assessment. A Korean-adapted mapping therapy program was applied, and outcomes were measured using sentence comprehension, sentence production, and spontaneous speech analysis. Results: All participants showed improvements in sentence comprehension and production, with average increases of 13.1% and 34.3%, respectively. Improvements were also observed in grammaticality, mean length of utterance, and sentence complexity in spontaneous speech. Conclusion: Mapping therapy effectively enhanced syntactic processing and grammatical accuracy and promoted generalization to spontaneous speech. These findings suggest its clinical value in language rehabilitation for individuals with Broca’s aphasia.
