Lily just finished her semi-annual visit to the audiologist. We arrived with what turned out to be a broken headpiece, and fortunately, were able to order a new one for delivery the next day. The headpiece had been cutting in and out for the previous few days and created a number of difficult listening situations with just one side.
With a loaner headpiece, Lily went into the booth for tests.
In quiet, Lily does very well. Tonight, Lily was asking if she hears as well as a "typically" hearing person. When we said yes, pretty much, she was quite proud. However, noise continues to be a challenge. Especially when the noise is variable.
At the audiologist, Lily took an interesting test - BKB-SIN. The BKB-SIN is a speech-in-noise test that uses BKB (Bamford-Kowal-Bench) sentences, recorded in four-talker babble. The BKB-SIN can be used to estimate SNR loss in children. Lily's results were as follows. Essentially, it says for Lily to get 50% accuracy, the signal has to be at least +9db above the noise floor or +11.5 db more than a normally hearing person (in a bilateral hearing situation).
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BKB-SIN Right CI only SNR for 50% correct: SNR loss re: normal Left CI only SNR for 50% correct: SNR loss re: normal Bilateral CI’s SNR for 50% correct: SNR loss re: normal |
+14.5 dB 17 dB
+9.5 dB 12 dB
+9 dB 11.5 dB |
An individual with normal hearing sensitivity would be expected to score 50% correct at a signal to noise ratio of -2.5 dB. The SNR loss is the difference between the signal to noise ratio at which Lily scored 50% correct and -2.5 dB.
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