Kondaurova Maria V, Smith Alan, Mishra Ruchik, Zheng Qi, Kondaurova Irina, Francis Alexander L, Sallee Emily
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Louisville, KY.
Department of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery and Communicative Disorders, University of Louisville, KY.
Am J Audiol. 2024 Dec 2;33(4):1331-1340. doi: 10.1044/2024_AJA-24-00078. Epub 2024 Oct 7.
Telepractice is a growing service model that delivers aural rehabilitation to deaf and hard-of hearing children via telecommunications technology. Despite known benefits of telepractice, this delivery approach may increase patients' listening effort (LE) characterized as an allocation of cognitive resources toward an auditory task. The study tested techniques for collecting physiological measures of LE in normal-hearing (NH) children during remote (referred to as tele-) and in-person communication using the wearable Empatica E4 wristband.
Participants were 10 children (age range: 9-12 years old) who came to two tele- and two in-person weekly sessions, order counterbalanced. During each session, the children heard a short passage read by the clinical provider, completed an auditory passage comprehension task, and self-rated their effort as a part of the larger study. Measures of electrodermal activity and blood volume pulse amplitude were collected from the child E4 wristband.
No differences in child subjective, physiological measures of LE or passage comprehension scores were found between in-person sessions and telesessions. However, an effect of treatment duration on subjective and physiological measures of LE was identified. Children self-reported a significant increase in LE over time. However, their physiological measures demonstrated a trend indicating a decrease in LE. A significant association between subjective measures and the passage comprehension task was found suggesting that those children who reported more effort demonstrated a higher proportion of correct responses.
The study demonstrated the feasibility of collection of physiological measures of LE in NH children during remote and in-person communication using the E4 wristband. The results suggest that measures of LE are multidimensional and may reflect different sources of, or cognitive responses to, increased listening demand.
远程医疗是一种不断发展的服务模式，通过电信技术为失聪和听力障碍儿童提供听力康复服务。尽管远程医疗有诸多已知益处，但这种服务方式可能会增加患者的听力努力（LE），即对听觉任务分配认知资源。本研究测试了在远程（即通过电话）和面对面交流期间，使用可穿戴的Empatica E4腕带收集正常听力（NH）儿童LE生理指标的技术。
参与者为10名儿童（年龄范围：9至12岁），他们每周参加两次远程和两次面对面会议，会议顺序采用平衡法。在每次会议期间，孩子们听取临床提供者朗读的一篇短文，完成听觉短文理解任务，并作为更大规模研究的一部分对自己的努力程度进行自我评估。通过儿童E4腕带收集皮肤电活动和血容量脉搏振幅指标。
在面对面会议和远程会议之间，未发现儿童主观、LE生理指标或短文理解分数存在差异。然而，确定了治疗持续时间对LE主观和生理指标的影响。随着时间推移，孩子们自我报告LE显著增加。然而，他们的生理指标显示出一种趋势，表明LE有所下降。发现主观指标与短文理解任务之间存在显著关联，这表明那些报告付出更多努力的孩子正确回答的比例更高。
该研究证明了在远程和面对面交流期间，使用E4腕带收集NH儿童LE生理指标的可行性。结果表明，LE指标具有多维度性，可能反映了听力需求增加的不同来源或认知反应。
