The human hearing capacity is able to differentiate different sounds that circulate in the same environment – a perception that experts define as spatial auditory processing. However, limitations may arise in many cases.
To evaluate people's hearing performance, a team of researchers from the Faculty of Medical Sciences (FCM) and the Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering (Feec) at Unicamp developed a computer program that can contribute to the diagnosis of individuals with complaints about difficulty understanding sounds in a noisy environment.
The Spatial Processing Test with Sentences in Noise is the first version, in Portuguese, of the Listening in Spatialized Noise-Sentences-Test (Lisn-S), a test in English carried out in order to identify when patients find it difficult to focus on the perception of certain sounds at the expense of others coming from different locations.
“We didn’t have a Portuguese version until now, but we had contact with the creators of the original technology, which increases the reliability of what we were able to develop here”, explains one of the participants in the technology development process, Bruno Sanches Masiero, professor at Feec.
The computer program was registered with the National Institute of Industrial Property (Inpi) with the support of Inova Unicamp Innovation Agency to protect the intellectual property of technology and was included in the University's Patent and Software Portfolio.
Hearing diagnosis performed by computer program
According to data from the National Health Survey, Brazil has around 2,2 million people with hearing loss resulting from changes in the external, middle and/or inner ear. Impairment of central auditory pathways and structures can lead to the so-called Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CPD), whose main symptom is the difficulty in understanding sound messages in a noisy environment. New tests may contribute to a more accurate diagnosis of Tpac and contribute more assertively to therapeutic planning in the case of children and adolescents.
“Today, speech therapy teams know that the speech and hearing development of children and adolescents needs to rely on a multidisciplinary team to identify to what extent the possible problems presented will have an impact not only on their health, but even on the process of speech therapy itself. children’s learning”, explains Maria Francisca Colella dos Santos, FCM teacher and coordinator of the technology idealization project.
In the test developed by Unicamp researchers, the specialist using the tool must enter the patient's information. The program presents four test conditions and uses a sound card that will synchronously reproduce two children's stories and a sequence of test sentences.
As the test is carried out, the patient must repeat to the specialist the words they can identify and the number of correct answers is noted in the software, which adjusts the sound level of the following sentence, according to the evolution of the steps, until reaching the criteria established by the specialist. .
Technology available for companies
Researchers believe that the computer program, entitled ProSER, It can be used by speech therapists, doctors, public and private institutions and speech therapy product companies.
The computer program may be licensed by companies that sell software and online systems for hearing screening or training. Companies or institutions interested in the technology should contact, via the Research and Market Connection form, Inova Unicamp, the University body responsible for receiving contacts and carrying out negotiations for the transfer of technologies.
Article originally published on the Inova Unicamp Innovation Agency website.
