The Best of 2002

FigureChoosing the best articles of 2002 in diagnostic audiology was as challenging as ever this year. I reviewed more than 140 articles from various journals and found many that deserved recognition for the importance of their contribution. I assigned all the articles to one of six categories and whittled them down to the finalists. Including the many good articles described below was, as always, the easy part. Excluding the others was the challenge. Nevertheless, here are my picks for 2002. GREAT FOR THE CLINICIAN There were some very good clinical articles in 2002. One of them was by Ishara Ramkissoon and colleagues, published in the American Journal of Audiology (AJA). The authors describe a test for measuring speech-reception thresholds in non-native English speakers with paired, familiar English digits. The article should be very useful to those clinicians faced with the challenge of assessing the speech recognition of patients who do not speak English. I also liked the article by James Henry and colleagues, published in JAAA. The authors describe protocols for the assessment of patients interested in receiving Tinnitus Retraining Therapy. Even if you do not subscribe to this treatment, there are good insights to be gained from the authors' extensive description of the various clinical considerations. Have you ever wondered how common hyperacusis is in the general population? Gerhard Andersson and colleagues from Sweden tackle that question in their article in the International Journal of Audiology (IJA). They describe survey results, exploring both the prevalence and descriptive characteristics of the problem. The answer? Somewhere between 6% and 8%. In diagnostic audiology, 2002 should be known as the year of the auditory steady-state response (ASSR). Many excellent articles were written on the subject. Among the best summaries was that in JAAA by Gary Rance and Field Rickards, from the University of Melbourne. They describe the relationship between ASSR thresholds determined in infancy and those subsequently obtained behaviorally in childhood. As is their custom, Rance and Rickards describe their findings in clear and informative ways. My Best of 2002 in the Great for the Clinician category is “Central auditory system and central auditory processing disorders: Some conceptual issues” by Dennis Phillips from Dalhousie University, published in Seminars in Hearing. This is an excellent and well-written summary of the basic design principles of the central auditory system, the extensive range of functions related to auditory processing, and issues surrounding rehabilitation. Don't miss it. BEST QUICK READ If you want a quick review of the contributions of Ira Hirsh, you can read all about them in a series of abstracts published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (edited by Janet Weisenberger and Judith Lauter). In a career spanning more than 50 years, Ira Hirsh has been a true pioneer in audiology. Read all about his prescience, as well as his acronyms. A number of good quick reads can be found in the British Society of Audiology Short Papers, published in IJA. One that I particularly liked was by K. Munro, T. Killen, and B.C.J. Moore from Cambridge. They describe the prevalence of cochlear dead regions in a group of teenagers with hearing loss. They found evidence of dead regions in 39% of ears. That should get your attention. Most of the Best Quick Reads this year were letters to the editor or responses to them. An especially interesting letter was written by Dennis McFarland and Anthony Cacace about factor analysis in auditory processing test batteries, published in AJA. Their letter and the response to it remind us of the challenge in interpreting test-battery outcomes. Another worthwhile response to a response is by Chuck Berlin, Linda Hood, and Kelly Rose to the comments of Roger Marsh, published consecutively in Audiology Today. Marsh argues that the term auditory dys-synchrony is imprecise, and his argument is compelling. Berlin and colleagues, who coined this term, argue back. This is lively reading. Although these articles were good, my choice for the Best Quick Read article of 2002 is a response to a response to a consensus report, published in Audiology Today. Here we have Jim Jerger and Frank Musiek, at their eminent best, teaching us all about diagnosis of auditory processing disorder. They provide an excellent description of the issues that surround this often-muddled topic. MOST THOUGHT PROVOKING I liked the Ear and Hearing article by Peggy Oates, Diane Kurtzberg, and David Stapells describing the effects of sensorineural hearing loss on auditory event-related potentials (ERPs). Results showed that hearing loss had a greater impact on later ERPs (N2/P3) than on earlier ones (N1/MMN). Their discussion of the possible physiologic mechanisms and the clinical significance are very interesting. I was also impressed with an article on the central theory of tinnitus by Joseph Attias and colleagues from Israel, published in IJA. The authors describe an intriguing pattern of tinnitus increase in military personnel that does not resemble the more linear increase in noise-induced hearing loss. They attribute this to a centrally mediated disinhibition resulting from fatigue-related or age-related deterioration over time. Another interesting article was by Jim Jerger and colleagues, published in JAAA, describing behavioral and electrophysiologic evidence of auditory processing disorder in one of a pair of fraternal twins. Although behavioral data showed few differences between the girls, significant differences were seen in ERPs measured in response to a gap-detection task. Do you think the difficulty your old hearing aid patients are having in background noise is due to a loss in their ability to attend selectively or in their ability to suppress distracting sound? Al De Chicchis and his colleagues used a rather clever paradigm for obtaining ERPs to address that question. As they report in JAAA, they found selective attention to be much more resistant to normal aging, which bodes well for amplification efforts aimed at enhancing signal-to-noise ratio. One of the articles I liked most was written by Anu Sharma, Michael Dorman, and Anthony Spahr in Ear and Hearing. In fact, it was my Best of 2002 in the Most Thought Provoking category. The article is entitled “A sensitive period for the development of the central auditory system in children with cochlear implants: Implications for age of implantation.” The authors measured the maturity of the central auditory pathways using auditory evoked potentials and found that age-appropriate responses occur in those children implanted earliest, but may not be achieved in those implanted at later ages. EXTRAMURAL WANDERINGS I wandered a little this year into the journals of other professions where I found several articles that are worthy of your attention. So I decided to give them a category of their own. One that is quite relevant to diagnostic audiology was published in Laryngoscope byAnthony CacaceandJoaquim Pinheiro. The study analyzes the relationship between OAEs and ABRs in neonates and young children, showing that they provide functionally independent information. We are beginning to understand the difference between the primary effect of an acoustic tumor on loss of hearing sensitivity and the secondary effect that it can have on cochlear function. Onur Odabasi and colleagues, writing in the Annals of Otology, Rhinology, and Laryngology, try to determine if the location of a tumor influences the likelihood of OAEs being present or absent in the presence of hearing loss. It doesn't, but the entire question is intriguing. The influence of socioeconomic factors on neonatal hearing loss is understood conceptually, but rarely measured. John Oghalai and colleagues, in a study published in Laryngoscope, describe risk factors and follow-up rates in two populations, one of them indigent. Significant differences in risk factors and follow-up are shown. My Best of 2002 in the Extramural Wanderings category goes to George Gates and colleagues for their article in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society entitled “Central auditory dysfunction may precede the onset of clinical dementia in people with probable Alzheimer's disease.” NOT READY FOR MEDLINE As is typical, the Not Ready for MedLine journals had a dearth of articles on diagnostic audiology in 2002. However, there were a few good ones. Richard Gans wrote a series of articles in The Hearing Review on the classification of audiovestibular symptoms related to migraine. As is typical of Gans as a communicator, the summary is very clear and helpful. Anne Marie Tharpe edited a special issue of The Hearing Journal focused on neonatal hearing care following screening. It is an excellent issue throughout and should be read by all those involved in pediatric assessment. Another Not Ready for MedLine article worthy of mention was by Jerry Yanz, who wrote an excellent summary of the current knowledge about cochlear dead regions for The Hearing Review. A more general article about professional preparation appeared in Advance for Audiologists, written by Susan Paarlberg. The author contrasts professional education in audiology and speech pathology with that of other healthcare disciplines. My Best of 2002 in the Not Ready for MedLine category is a special issue of Audiology Today, entitled “Update on Infant Hearing.” Edited by Ferdinando Grandori and Deborah Hayes, the issue is loaded with very good papers from the Second International Newborn Hearing Screening Conference. ALL-ROUND FAVORITES I read at least four great articles on auditory neuropathy in an issue of Seminars in Hearing devoted to the topic. They were all so good that I had trouble picking a favorite, so I will just give credit to the guest editor of that issue, Alison Grimes. If you care about the topic, read the whole issue. One of my favorite articles this year was written by Gary Rance and colleagues at the University of Melbourne and published in Ear and Hearing. The authors describe speech perception and ERPs in children with auditory neuropathy. Intriguing is their suggestion that ERPs may offer a means of predicting perceptual skills in newly diagnosed children and that their presence is associated with amplification benefit. Another of my all-round favorite articles of 2002 was written by Heather Fortnum, David Marshall, and Quentin Summerfield from Nottingham, published in IJA. This article describes the epidemiology of hearing loss in the UK, including characteristics of implant users. Did you know that nearly 30% of children with hearing impairment have another disability? Read this excellent article to learn that and much more. Another very good article was by Ray Hurley and colleagues in Ear and Hearing. It describes results from two patients with brainstem disorders, one affecting the afferent system and one affecting both the afferent and efferent systems. The contrasting outcomes on auditory measures are intriguing. And now, for the winner in the All-Round Favorite category: “Temporally jittered speech produces performance intensity, phonetically balanced rollover in young normal-hearing listeners” by Terence Miranda and Kathleen Pichora-Fuller. published in JAAA. I believe these authors have discovered the underlying reason for rollover. Not a bad day's work!

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