LISTENING EFFORT AND TELEHEALTH IN SPEECH, LANGUAGE AND HEARING SCIENCES: PRELIMINARY FINDINGS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE LISTENING EFFORT SCREENING QUESTIONNAIRE
1Ankara Medipol Üniversitesi, Sağlık Bilimleri Fakültesi, Odyoloji, Ankara, Turkey2Lokman Hekim Üniversitesi Sağlık Bilimleri Fakültesi, Dil ve Konuşma Terapisi, Ankara, Turkey Objective: Remote therapy and rehabilitation procedures have become popular in recent years, but the effects of audio and video streaming quality (AVSQ) and the listening effort (LE) have been neglected. Since increased LE and reduced AVSQ may have a diminishing effect on the use of cognitive resources depending on the communication environment or auditory skills, it is especially important in interventions related to hearing and speech-language disorders. The aim of our study is present the preliminary development process of a simple listening effort screening questionnaire (LESQ) that can support professionals in remote interventions.
Material and Methods: 65 adult individuals with persistent developmental stuttering participated in this study. Participants filled out an 11-point Likert-type scale with 5 items related to LE and 3 items related to AVSQ. Participants attended three remote therapy sessions and filled out the LESQ. Average values obtained from three sessions were used for the analysis. Factor analysis and Cronbach's alpha coefficient analysis were conducted for internal consistency of the inventory and correlation coefficients between LE and AVSQ item averages were calculated for the assessment of construct validity.
Results: As a result of the reliability analysis, the last item in the LE subscale was removed from the final LESQ. Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the 7-item LESQ, LE subscale, and AVSQ subscale were 0.87, 0.85, and 0.83, respectively. The factor analysis confirmed a two-factor construct with AVSQ and LE which explain 66.5% of the total variance. There was a statistically significant correlation between the LE and AVSQ sub-scales (r = 0.57).
Conclusion: LESQ can be used as a screening tool for professionals planning to conduct remote therapies, especially for hearing and speech-language-related programs. Future studies that will include various disorders and therapy outcomes will be conducted.
Keywords : Listening effort, telehealth, remote therapy, speech and language therapy, aural rehabilitation