THE EFFECTS OF FACE MASK USE DURING COVID-19 ON SPEECH COMPREHENSION IN GERIATRIC PATIENTS WITH HEARING LOSS WHO USE LIP-READING FOR COMMUNICATION: A PROSPECTIVE CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY

Objective: Communication difficulties are considered the most significant consequence of hearing loss. This study aimed to determine whether surgical face masks, which have been mandatory throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, have an effect on speech comprehension scores in geriatric lip-reading patients with hearing loss and to raise awareness of the need for solutions to this problem. Materials and Method: Patients with moderate and higher sensorineural or mixed bilateral symmetrical hearing loss who stated that they lip-read to better understand during communication were included in the study. The patients’ speech comprehension scores were gathered while the audiologist wore a surgical mask and then a transparent mask, respectively. Results: Twelve (33,3%) of the patients were female, and 24 (66.7%) were male. The mean age of the patients was 66.64±1.53 years. The mean speech comprehension scores of the patients when the audiologist was wearing a surgical mask (38.25±14.33) and a transparent mask (67.81 ± 14.30), respectively, were compared. The surgical mask significantly affected speech comprehension scores, and the Cohen d value of the effect size was 2.06. As such, the surgical face mask had a great effect on these patients’ speech comprehension scores. Conclusions: In elderly lip-reading patients who suffer from hearing loss, seeing the lip movements of the speaker, especially in hospital applications, promotes more effective communication. Transparent face masks can be considered a solution. © 2022, Geriatrics Society. All rights reserved

Evaluation of The Language Development of Children With Cochlear Implant Users Living in A Multilingual Environment

To evaluate the effect of second language exposure on Turkish speaking skills in cochlear implant (CI) users. Methods: Children living in mono and bilingual families, who underwent unilateral cochlear implant due to congenital severe to profound, or profound hearing loss, were examined. The fifty six children with a chronological age younger than 8 and a language age of 2–6 years were included the study. The Denver II Developmental Screening Test was used for identifying of pre-implant speech and development. The duration of implant use was also documented. Languages spoken at the patients' homes were divided into 4 categories: T/K: Predominantly Turkish/Kurdish, K/T: Predominantly Kurdish/Turkish, T/T: Just Turkish, A/T: Predominantly Arabic/Turkish. The CAP (Categories of Auditory Performance), SIR (Speech Intelligibility Rating), The Turkish Version Test of The Early Language Development (TELD-3:T),. The IT-MAIS (Infant Toddler Meaningful Auditory Integration Scale), MUSS (Meaningful Use of Speech Scale) were used to evaluate the language development of the patients. Changes in IT-MAIS and MUSS scores in the last two years were also evaluated. Results: The all children received their implants before age of 6 years. The average duration of cochlear implant use of children was 38,43 ± 11,64 months. The mean pre-implant speech age was 6,8 ± 2,13 months. There was no significant difference between the groups in terms of the CAP and SIR scores. In TELD-3:T scores, there was no significant difference between the groups except for the receptive raw scores. The Arabic/Turkish group had significantly lower receptive raw scores. This group also had significantly lower mother educational level. In IT-MAIS and MUSS scores, no significant difference was found between the groups. Conclusions: Our study supports the opinion that exposure to a second language at home does not affect the acquisition of the language of education in children using CI