Speech token detection and discrimination in individual infants using functional near-infrared spectroscopy
Darren Mao, Julia Wunderlich, Borislav Savkovic, Emily Jeffreys, Namita Nicholls, Onn Wah Lee, Michael Eager, Colette M McKay, Darren Mao, Julia Wunderlich, Borislav Savkovic, Emily Jeffreys, Namita Nicholls, Onn Wah Lee, Michael Eager, Colette M McKay
Abstract
Speech detection and discrimination ability are important measures of hearing ability that may inform crucial audiological intervention decisions for individuals with a hearing impairment. However, behavioral assessment of speech discrimination can be difficult and inaccurate in infants, prompting the need for an objective measure of speech detection and discrimination ability. In this study, the authors used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) as the objective measure. Twenty-three infants, 2 to 10 months of age participated, all of whom had passed newborn hearing screening or diagnostic audiology testing. They were presented with speech tokens at a comfortable listening level in a natural sleep state using a habituation/dishabituation paradigm. The authors hypothesized that fNIRS responses to speech token detection as well as speech token contrast discrimination could be measured in individual infants. The authors found significant fNIRS responses to speech detection in 87% of tested infants (false positive rate 0%), as well as to speech discrimination in 35% of tested infants (false positive rate 9%). The results show initial promise for the use of fNIRS as an objective clinical tool for measuring infant speech detection and discrimination ability; the authors highlight the further optimizations of test procedures and analysis techniques that would be required to improve accuracy and reliability to levels needed for clinical decision-making.
Conflict of interest statement
The authors declare no competing interests.
© 2021. The Author(s).
Figures
References
- Boisvert I, Reis M, Au A, Cowan R, Dowell RC. Cochlear implantation outcomes in adults: A scoping review. PLoS ONE. 2020;15:e0232421. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0232421.
- van der Straaten TFK, Briaire JJ, Vickers D, Boermans P, Frijns JHM. Selection criteria for cochlear implantation in the United Kingdom and Flanders: Toward a less restrictive standard. Ear Hear. 2020;42:68–75. doi: 10.1097/AUD.0000000000000901>.
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Cochlear implants for children and adults with severe to profound deafness. Technology appraisal guidance TA566. (2019).
- Uhler K, Warner-Czyz A, Gifford R. Pediatric minimum speech test battery. J. Am. Acad. Audiol. 2017;28:232–247. doi: 10.3766/jaaa.15123.
- Ching TYC, et al. Age at intervention for permanent hearing loss and 5-year language outcomes. Pediatrics. 2017;140:e20164274. doi: 10.1542/peds.2016-4274.
- Stika CJ. Developmental outcomes in early-identified children who are hard of hearing at 2 to 3 years of age. Ear Hear. 2021 doi: 10.1097/AUD.0000000000001012>.
- Issard C, Gervain J. Variability of the hemodynamic response in infants: Influence of experimental design and stimulus complexity. Dev. Cogn. Neurosci. 2018;33:182–193. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2018.01.009.
- Lawrence RJ, Wiggins IM, Hodgson JC, Hartley DEH. Evaluating cortical responses to speech in children: A functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) study. Hear. Res. 2020;401:108155. doi: 10.1016/j.heares.2020.108155.
- Nakano T, Watanabe H, Homae F, Taga G. Prefrontal cortical involvement in young infants' analysis of novelty. Cereb. Cortex. 2009;19:455–463. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhn096.
- Lloyd-Fox S, et al. Habituation and novelty detection fNIRS brain responses in 5- and 8-month-old infants: The Gambia and UK. Dev. Sci. 2019;22:e12817. doi: 10.1111/desc.12817.
- Shader MJ, Luke R, Gouailhardou N, McKay CM. The use of broad vs restricted regions of interest in functional near-infrared spectroscopy for measuring cortical activation to auditory-only and visual-only speech. Hear. Res. 2021;406:108256. doi: 10.1016/j.heares.2021.108256.
- Zhou X, et al. Cortical speech processing in postlingually deaf adult cochlear implant users, as revealed by functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Trends Hear. 2018 doi: 10.1177/2331216518786850.
- Bortfeld H. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy as a tool for assessing speech and spoken language processing in pediatric and adult cochlear implant users. Dev. Psychobiol. 2019;61:430–443. doi: 10.1002/dev.21818.
- Mushtaq F, Wiggins IM, Kitterick PT, Anderson CA, Hartley DEH. The benefit of cross-modal reorganization on speech perception in pediatric cochlear implant recipients revealed using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 2020;14:308. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2020.00308.
- Rance G, Cone-Wesson B, Wunderlich J, Dowell R. Speech perception and cortical event related potentials in children with auditory neuropathy. Ear Hear. 2002;23:239–253. doi: 10.1097/00003446-200206000-00008.
- Rance G, Starr A. Pathophysiological mechanisms and functional hearing consequences of auditory neuropathy. Brain. 2015;138:3141–3158. doi: 10.1093/brain/awv270.
- Wunderlich JL, Cone-Wesson BK. Effects of stimulus frequency and complexity on the mismatch negativity and other components of the cortical auditory-evoked potential. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 2001;109:1526–1537. doi: 10.1121/1.1349184.
- Martin BA, Tremblay KL, Korczak P. Speech evoked potentials: From the laboratory to the clinic. Ear Hear. 2008;29:285–313. doi: 10.1097/AUD.0b013e3181662c0e.
- Digeser FM, Wohlberedt T, Hoppe U. Contribution of spectrotemporal features on auditory event-related potentials elicited by consonant-vowel syllables. Ear Hear. 2009;30:704–712. doi: 10.1097/AUD.0b013e3181b1d42d.
- Cheek D, Cone B. Evidence of vowel discrimination provided by the acoustic change complex. Ear Hear. 2019 doi: 10.1097/AUD.0000000000000809.
- Martin BA, Boothroyd A, Ali D, Leach-Berth T. Stimulus presentation strategies for eliciting the acoustic change complex: Increasing efficiency. Ear Hear. 2010;31:356–366. doi: 10.1097/AUD.0b013e3181ce6355.
- Cone BK. Infant cortical electrophysiology and perception of vowel contrasts. Int. J. Psychophysiol. 2015;95:65–76. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2014.06.002.
- Uhler KM, Hunter SK, Tierney E, Gilley PM. The relationship between mismatch response and the acoustic change complex in normal hearing infants. Clin. Neurophysiol. 2018;129:1148–1160. doi: 10.1016/j.clinph.2018.02.132.
- Taga G, Watanabe H, Homae F. Developmental changes in cortical sensory processing during wakefulness and sleep. Neuroimage. 2018;178:519–530. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.05.075.
- Houston-Price C, Nakai S. Distinguishing novelty and familiarity effects in infant preference procedures. Infant Child Dev. 2004;13:341–348. doi: 10.1002/icd.364.
- Eisenberg LS, Martinez AS, Boothroyd A. Assessing auditory capabilities in young children. Int. J. Pediatr. Otorhinol. 2007;71:1339–1350. doi: 10.1016/j.ijporl.2007.05.017.
- Kuhl PK, Williams KA, Lacerda F, Stevens KN, Lindblom B. Linguistic experience alters phonetic perception in infants by 6 months of age. Science. 1992;255:606–608. doi: 10.1126/science.1736364.
- Taga G, Homae F, Watanabe H. Effects of source-detector distance of near infrared spectroscopy on the measurement of the cortical hemodynamic response in infants. Neuroimage. 2007;38:452–460. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2007.07.050.
- Aasted CM, et al. Anatomical guidance for functional near-infrared spectroscopy: AtlasViewer tutorial. Neurophotonics. 2015;2:020801. doi: 10.1117/1.NPh.2.2.020801.
- Nuwer MR, et al. IFCN standards for digital recording of clinical EEG. Electroencephal. Clin. Neurophysiol. 1998;106:259–261. doi: 10.1016/S0013-4694(97)00106-5.
- Santosa H, Zhai X, Fishburn F, Huppert T. The NIRS brain AnalyzIR toolbox. Algorithms. 2018;11:73–73. doi: 10.3390/a11050073.
- Fishburn FA, Ludlum RS, Vaidya CJ, Medvedev AV. Temporal derivative distribution repair (TDDR): A motion correction method for fNIRS. Neuroimage. 2019;184:171–179. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.09.025.
- Duan L, et al. Wavelet-based method for removing global physiological noise in functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Biomed. Opt. Express. 2018;9:3805–3820. doi: 10.1364/boe.9.003805.
- Delpy DT, et al. Estimation of optical pathlength through tissue from direct time of flight measurement. Phys. Med. Biol. 1988;33:1433–1442. doi: 10.1088/0031-9155/33/12/008.
- Cui X, Bray S, Reiss AL. Functional near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) signal improvement based on negative correlation between oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin dynamics. Neuroimage. 2010;49:3039–3046. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.11.050.
- Luke R, et al. Analysis methods for measuring passive auditory fNIRS responses generated by a block-design paradigm. Neurophotonics. 2021;8:025008. doi: 10.1117/1.NPh.8.2.025008.
- May L, Gervain J, Carreiras M, Werker JF. The specificity of the neural response to speech at birth. Dev. Sci. 2018 doi: 10.1111/desc.12564.
- Arimitsu T, et al. The cerebral hemodynamic response to phonetic changes of speech in preterm and term infants: The impact of postmenstrual age. Neuroimage Clin. 2018;19:599–606. doi: 10.1016/j.nicl.2018.05.005.
- Cabrera L, Gervain J. Speech perception at birth: The brain encodes fast and slow temporal information. Sci. Adv. 2020;6:7830. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aba7830.
- Abboub N, Nazzi T, Gervain J. Prosodic grouping at birth. Brain Lang. 2016;162:46–59. doi: 10.1016/j.bandl.2016.08.002.
- Flo A, et al. Newborns are sensitive to multiple cues for word segmentation in continuous speech. Dev. Sci. 2019;22:e12802. doi: 10.1111/desc.12802.
- Houston DM, Horn DL, Qi R, Ting JY, Gao S. Assessing speech discrimination in individual infants. Infancy. 2007;12:119–145. doi: 10.1111/j.1532-7078.2007.tb00237.x.
- Wunderlich JL, Cone-Wesson BK, Shepherd R. Maturation of the cortical auditory evoked potential in infants and young children. Hear. Res. 2006;212:185–202. doi: 10.1016/j.heares.2005.11.010.
Source: PubMed