Auditory steady-state responses and speech feature discrimination in infants.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to determine whether there was a correlation between auditory steady-state responses (ASSRs) for complex toneburst stimuli and speech feature discrimination (SFD) abilities in young infants.


METHODS
Seventeen infants (mean age = 9.4 months) and 21 adults (mean age = 27 years) with normal hearing had ASSR and SFD tests.


METHODS
The ASSR test employed an eight-component complex toneburst stimulus; threshold and input-output functions were determined as level was systematically varied. The SFD test utilized an observer-based, visual-reinforcement test procedure to determine the infant's ability to detect the speech feature change from /ba/ to /da/.


RESULTS
The correlation of the group mean /ba/-/da/ discrimination performance (percent correct) with the group mean ASSR score (percent responses present) ranged from r = 0.64 for the 1500 Hz amplitude-modulated and frequency-modulated tone burst to 0.99 for ASSRs for all stimulus components; however, correlations between ASSRs and SFD scores for individual subjects were modest.


CONCLUSIONS
The ASSR and SFD results appear to reflect the audibility of the stimuli.
Cone
Barbara
B
Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA. conewess@u.arizona.edu
Garinis
Angela
A
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001300:Audiometry, Evoked Response; D001309:Auditory Threshold / Q000502:physiology*; D003216:Conditioning, Operant; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D011601:Psychophysics; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013063:Speech Discrimination Tests / Q000379:methods*; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult