Objectives: The present study aimed to investigate in a group of elderly CI users working memory and attention, conventionally considered as predictors of better CI performance and to try to disentangle the effects of these cognitive domains on speech perception, finding potential markers of cognitive decline related to audiometric findings. Methods Thirty postlingually deafened CI users aged >60 underwent an audiological evaluation followed by a cognitive assessment of attention and verbal working memory. A correlation analysis was performed to evaluate the associations between cognitive variables while a simple regression investigated the relationships between cognitive and audiological variables. Comparative analysis was performed to compare variables on the basis of subjects’ attention performance. Results: Attention was found to play a significant role in sound field and speech perception. Univariate analysis found a significant difference between poor and high attention performers, while regression analysis showed that attention significantly predicted recognition of words presented at Signal/Noise +10. Further, the high attention performers showed significantly higher scores than low attentional performers for all working memory tasks. Conclusion: Overall findings confirmed that a better cognitive performance may positively contribute to better speech perception outcomes, especially in complex listening situations. WM may play a crucial role in storage and processing of auditory-verbal stimuli and a robust attention may lead to better performance for speech perception in noise. Implementation of cognitive training in auditory rehabilitation of CI users should be investigated in order to improve cognitive and audiological performance in elderly CI users.

Background: Listening difficulties may frequently occur in school settings, but so far there were no tools to identify them for both hearing and hearing-impaired Italian students. This study performed cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the Listening Inventory for Education-Revised for Italian students (LIFE-R-ITA). Methods: The study procedure followed the stages suggested by the Guidelines for the Process of Cross-cultural Adaptation of Self-Report Measures. For the content validation, six cochlear implanted students (8–18 years old) pre-tested the initial version. Whenever any situation did not occur in Italy, the item was adapted to more typical listening situations in Italy. The final version of LIFE-R-ITA was administered to a sample of 223 hearing students from different school settings and educational degrees in order to collect normative data. Results: For the LIFE-R-ITA, hearing students showed an average score of 72.26% (SD = 11.93), reflecting some listening difficulties. The subscales (LIFE total, LIFE class, and LIFE social) indicated good internal consistency. All items were shown to be relevant. Most challenging situations happened when listening in large rooms, especially when other students made noise. LIFE social scores were significantly worse than those of LIFE class (p < 0.001). Conclusions: The present study provides cross-cultural adaptation and validation for the LIFE-R-ITA along with the normative data useful to interpret the results of students with hearing loss. The LIFE-R-ITA may support teachers and clinicians in assessing students’ self-perception of listening at school. Such understanding may help students overcome their listening difficulties, by planning and selecting the most effective strategies among classroom interventions.

Background: There has been a lack of tools to identify listening difficulties in school settings for both hearing and hearing-impaired Italian students. Thus, the present study aimed to realize cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the Listening Inventory for Education-Revised for Italian students (LIFE-R-ITA). Methods: Following the validation of two forward-backward translations by a multidisciplinary committee, the content validation for the LIFE-R-ITA was performed by pre-testing six implanted children (8-18 years old). After minor cross-cultural adaptations, normative data were collected from a sample of 223 hearing students enrolled in different school settings and educational degrees. Results: For the LIFE-R-ITA, hearing students showed an average score of 72.26% (SD=11.93), reflecting some listening difficulties. The subscales (LIFE total, LIFE class, and LIFE social) indicated good internal consistency. All items were shown to be relevant. Most challenging situations happened when listening in large rooms, especially when other students made noise. LIFE social scores were significantly worse than those of LIFE class (p < 0.001). Conclusions: The LIFE-R-ITA may support teachers and clinicians in assessing students’ self-perception of listening at school. Such understanding may help students overcome their listening difficulties, by planning and selecting the most effective strategies among classroom interventions.