Language ENvironmental Analysis System versus Tait Videoanalysis in Children with Hearing Loss

Early hearing detection and intervention programs are in need of high-quality outcome evaluation tools for infants and children from birth to three years of age.

Language ENvironmental Analysis (LENA) is an automated speech processing (ASP) system that analyses auditory environments and naturalistic recordings of children’s vocalizations.

This system differentiates children based on age and developmental status and it examines which factors contribute to variability in children’s communication outcomes.

LENA system can be used for examine vocal development in hearing loss children using a very large database of hundreds of whole-day recordings of families in naturalistic home environments.

In order to evaluate the flexibility and the validity of LENA system we compared LENA recordings and Tait video-analysis in 4 profound deaf children along their course of treatment from early bilateral hearing aids to bilateral cochlear implant fitting.

Recording were made every 3 months starting from the age of 6 to 18 months.

Strengths and weaknesses of the two outcome measures methods in the analysis of the early communication skills in deaf children were described.