Support for UNRWA's survival

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) provides life-saving humanitarian aid for 5·4 million Palestine refugees now entering their eighth decade of statelessness and conflict. About a third of Palestine refugees still live in 58 recognised camps. UNRWA operates 702 schools and 144 health centres, some of which are affected by the ongoing humanitarian disasters in Syria and the Gaza Strip. It has dramatically reduced the prevalence of infectious diseases, mortality, and illiteracy. Its social services include rebuilding infrastructure and homes that have been destroyed by conflict and providing cash assistance and micro-finance loans for Palestinians whose rights are curtailed and who are denied the right of return to their homeland

Contemporary Approaches to Audiological Assessment in Young Children

It is a continual challenge for clinical audiologists to obtain valid and reliable information concerning the auditory sensitivity and auditory processing abilities of young children, especially those with language disorders. The majority of the tests that are available for use with young children do not provide much information regarding the problems they are likely to encounter in typical communication situations. This paper describes a new class of auditory tests designed to evaluate the ability of young children to (1) detect commonly encountered sounds, (2) localize sound sources, and (3) understand speech in noise. These tests appear to be sensitive to the effects of auditory pathology and to the normal development of auditory processing skills

Clinical Application of the Synchronized Sentence Set (S3)

Nearly 15 years ago, the US Army (ARL-HRED) developed the Synchronized Sentence Set (S3) to assess the benefits of spatialized speech presentation for military personnel working in multi-talker environments. The S3 consists of 2034 sentences (10 syllables each) constructed from 104 token phrases and recorded by four male talkers. When presented together, sentences are temporally synchronized in a manner allowing key words in individual sentences to begin and end at the same time. The S3 companion software enables the user to simultaneously present one target (T) message and up to three competing (C) messages during a test condition. The user can independently route the T- and C-messages through one or more transducers (e.g., earphones or loudspeakers) to create a variety of divided and selective attention tasks. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the S 3 and companion software could be used to assess speech perception in multi-talker noise in a clinical setting. Sentences from the S3 were presented via (1) standard supra-aural earphones (diotically or dichotically), (2) four loudspeakers, and (3) a 3-D audio earphone system that simulated the positions of the four loudspeakers. Participants (N=26) listened to T-messages in the presence of 0, 1, 2 and 3 C-messages. The listeners\u27 task was to record key words from the T-messages on a custom response sheet (640 trials/participant). Results indicated significant decreases in performance as the number of T-messages increased, for all listening modes. In conditions involving two or three C-messages, however, participants performed significantly better when T-messages were routed through loudspeakers or the 3-D audio system. Findings suggest that the S3 and companion software may offer clinicians and researchers with a reliable and flexible tool for assessing listener performance in multi-talker noise

Sentence Recognition in the Presence of Competing Speech Messages Presented in Audiometric Booths with Reverberation Times of 0.4 and 0.6 Seconds

This study examined whether differences in reverberation time (RT) between typical sound field test rooms used in audiology clinics have an effect on speech recognition in multi-talker environments. Separate groups of participants listened to target speech sentences presented simultaneously with 0-to-3 competing sentences through four spatially-separated loudspeakers in two sound field test rooms having RT = 0.6 sec (Site 1:N= 16) and RT = 0.4 sec (Site 2: N = 12). Speech recognition scores (SRSs) for the Synchronized Sentence Set (S3) test and subjective estimates of perceived task difficulty were recorded. Obtained results indicate that the change in room RT from 0.4 to 0.6 sec did not significantly influence SRSs in quiet or in the presence of one competing sentence. However, this small change in RT affected SRSs when 2 and 3 competing sentences were present, resulting in mean SRSs that were about 8-10% better in the room with RT = 0.4 sec. Perceived task difficulty ratings increased as the complexity of the task increased, with average ratings similar across test sites for each level of sentence competition. These results suggest that site-specific normative data must be collected for sound field rooms if clinicians would like to use two or more directional speech maskers during routine sound field testing

Correlation of SVINT and Sensory Organization Test in Children with Hearing Loss

Objective: The skull vibration-induced-nystagmus test (SVINT) is a noninvasive and effective screening tool for the function of the otolith and canal structures in children. It can instantaneously assess vestibular asymmetry. This study aimed to analyze the SVINT results of healthy children vs. children with hearing loss (HL) and to correlate it with sensory organization test (SOT) results as a functional balance evaluation tool. Design: This case-controlled study compared the results of SVINT to the results of the SOT of the computerized dynamic posturography (CDP) in a control group of 120 healthy normal-hearing children (i.e., NH group) vs. hearing loss (HL) group of 60 children, including 30 children with hearing aids (HAs) and 30 children with a unilateral cochlear implant (CI). The SVINT results were compared to the caloric test (CaT) and video head impulse test (vHIT) and associated with SOT scores. Results: Thirty-one children in the HL group had normal SVINT and normal SOT results. A total of 21 children in the HL group had SVINT-negative and abnormal results in the SOT (possibly due to bilateral vestibular loss (BVL)). Eight children in the HL group had positive SVINT and abnormal SOT results. However, none of the children had only positive SVINT with normal SOT findings. Moreover, 52% of children had a normal result on both the SOT and CaT, whereas 27% had abnormal results on both tests (17% bilateral weakness and 10% unilateral), and 22% had the only result of the SOT suggesting a functional abnormality. Similarly, when associating the result to vHIT, 51% had normal results on both tests, and 25% had abnormal results (13% bilateral and 12% unilateral weakness). Conclusions: SVINT findings can be correlated with SOT findings in the case of the unilateral vestibular lesion (UVL), which adds a diagnostic value in these pediatric cases but may differ in the case of the bilateral vestibular lesion (BVL). However, SVINT findings need to be cautiously interpreted in light of other test findings such as the SOT, CaT, and vHIT.Medicine, Faculty ofNon UBCReviewedFacultyResearche