Helfer Receives Ear and Hearing Editor's Award
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Professor of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences Karen Helfer and her co-authors have received the 2024 Ear and Hearing Editor’s Award for their publication “Extended High-Frequency Thresholds: Associations With Demographic and Risk Factors, Cognitive Ability, and Hearing Outcomes in Middle-Aged and Older Adults.” Helfer, lead author on this paper, was recognized at the 52nd annual meeting of the American Auditory Society (AAS) held in February in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Ear and Hearing is the official journal of the AAS, an organization dedicated to promoting the translation of scientific discovery to clinical practice in hearing and balance disorders through multi-disciplinary interaction among members in clinical care, research, engineering and industry. Each year, its editorial board members select an Ear and Hearing article to be recognized for its outstanding contribution to the literature on hearing or balance. The journal’s overarching goal is to publish articles that not only advance the basic understanding of hearing and balance but also seek to translate that knowledge into future clinical practice.
“This project began in 2020 during my sabbatical and represents several years’ worth of collaborative efforts,” says Helfer. “It was a complete surprise to receive this award—I am very grateful to the editorial board of Ear & Hearing for this honor.”
In their study, Helfer and collaborators from the Medical University of South Carolina set out to characterize extended high-frequency (EHF) thresholds in a large sample of middle-aged and older adults, and to determine the extent to which measuring hearing in this region might add to our understanding of the functional consequences of age-related hearing loss. The authors note that elevated EHF thresholds (> 8 kHz), which are typically not examined clinically, may help explain why some people, regardless of age, report problems understanding speech in challenging acoustic conditions even when hearing in the conventional frequency range is within normal limits.
The researchers examined the associations between EHF thresholds and a variety of demographic factors (age, sex, race/ethnicity), risk factors (cardiovascular disease, smoking, noise exposure, occupation), and cognitive abilities. They also set out to determine variance explained by EHF thresholds for speech perception in noise, self-rated workload/effort, and self-reported hearing difficulties.
Their results indicated that EHF thresholds show age-, sex-, and race-related patterns of elevation that are similar to what is observed for conventional thresholds. The most notable finding was that hearing loss in the EHF range helped to explain additional variability in self-perceived hearing problems in older adults, above and beyond what could be predicted from hearing thresholds at conventional frequencies. These findings support the need for more research to determine the utility of adding EHF thresholds to routine audiometric assessment with middle-aged and older adults.
A member of the UMass Amherst faculty since 1988, Helfer serves as the Associate Dean for Graduate, Postdoctoral, and Faculty Development in the College of Natural Sciences. Her research program focuses on factors that influence the ability to understand speech in adverse listening situations as people age, such as in the presence of noise, reverberation, and other people talking. Her most recent research interests revolve around studying changes in speech understanding and listening effort that occur early in the aging process (i.e., in middle-aged adults).