Advanced hearing prosthesis recipient habilitation and/or rehabilitation
Inventors
Assignees
Interested in licensing this patent?
MTEC can help explore whether this patent might be available for licensing for your application.
Publication Number
US-12477288-B2
Publication Date
2025-11-18
Expiration Date
Abstract
A method of increasing an ability of a recipient of a hearing prosthesis' ability to hear with the hearing prosthesis, including obtaining data indicative of a first characteristic of content, wherein the content is an audio or an audio-visual content, obtaining data indicative of a second characteristic of the content, identifying, based on the first and second characteristics, specific content and using at least one item of the specific content with the hearing prosthesis such that a hearing percept in the recipient is evoked based on the at least one item of specific content.
Core Innovation
The invention relates to hearing-prosthesis habilitation and/or rehabilitation using a training system that identifies media content for a person based on both desired content and an ability to comprehend that content. The system receives a first input indicative of the person’s desired audio and/or audio-visual content and a second input indicative of and/or related to the person’s ability to comprehend the desired audio and/or audio-visual content.
Based on the received first and second inputs, the system identifies media content using linguistic and audio properties associated with the desired topic item selections and the person. The selected media content is used to evoke a hearing percept and improve the recipient’s ability to hear with the prosthesis.
The system further supports varying listenability and training progress over time. Difficulty can be adjusted, and the sound scene can be modified by changing properties such as word rate, speaker gender/accent, linguistic complexity, and background sound characteristics, with feedback from the recipient used to update evaluation.
Claims Coverage
The provided independent claim specifies a training system with two sub-systems: receiving first and second inputs indicative of desired content and comprehension ability, and identifying media content based at least on those inputs. The claim set includes eight inventive feature variants across the provided material.
Receiving desired audio and/or audio-visual content
A first sub-system is configured to receive first input indicative of a person's desired audio and/or audio-visual content.
Receiving comprehension ability input
A first sub-system is configured to receive second input indicative of and/or related to an ability of the person to comprehend the desired audio and/or audio-visual content.
Identifying media content from both inputs
A second sub-system is configured to identify media content based at least on the first and second input.
Database-backed media identification
The system accesses a database representative of media content items and identifies one or more items from within the database based on the first and second inputs.
Media identification using multiple media attributes
The system identifies media content using one or more attributes including desired word rate, speaker gender, speaker accent, linguistic complexity level, and/or background sound features.
Media identification with vocabulary progression over time
The system identifies media with less sophisticated vocabulary for a first time period and identifies media with more sophisticated vocabulary after the person's speech comprehension improves.
GUI-based input on a portable electronics device
The system includes a first portable electronics device with a GUI that provides data entry spots for the first input and a second input.
Second input tied to sensory and mental state
The sensory state relates to the person’s ability to comprehend speech and/or hear with a hearing prosthesis based on a hearing percept evoked by the prosthesis, and the mental state is the person’s desire to work to hear and/or comprehend what is heard.
Overall, the claim coverage centers on identifying media content for a training system by receiving a desired-content input and a comprehension-ability input, and then identifying media based at least on both inputs. The dependent-claim refinements emphasize database-backed identification, attribute-based identification, progression tied to improved speech comprehension, and portable-device GUI input.
Stated Advantages
Improves the recipient’s ability to hear with the prosthesis.
Documented Applications
Habilitation and/or rehabilitation for a person using hearing-prosthesis training with identified audio and/or audio-visual content.
Interested in licensing this patent?