Program
PhD in Surgery

Date of registration
August 2016

Supervisor
Professor Kathy LEE

Co-supervisors
Professor Iris NG
Professor Michael TONG

Field of research/intended thesis title
The construction and validation of Cantonese Sentence Recognition in Noise Test

Introduction of research study
Speech recognition in noise is an important aspect of human communication. One’s speech recognition ability in noise is inevitably affected by any hearing impairment, and may only be quantified with specific language at an appropriate difficulty.
There is a niche among clinically available test materials between word recognition and 10-syllable sentence recognition in noise in Cantonese Chinese. Ten-syllable sentence items are commented to be too challenging to the cognitive abilities of young children and elderly population. An assessment tool for pediatric patients, and the whole array of patients with significant hearing impairment, compromised language or cognitive abilities, is deemed necessary. Both the research and clinical audiology communities need a valid and reliable outcome measurement tool for sentence recognition abilities in noise of the specific population.
An open-set sentence speech recognition in noise test in Cantonese Chinese, which is applicable on children and adults with hearing loss, is proposed to be developed in this project to bridge the gap.

Program
PhD in Surgery

Date of registration
1 November 2014

Supervisor
Professor Kathy LEE

Co-supervisors
Professor Michael TONG

Field of research/intended thesis title
The Cortical Organization of Lexical Tone Perception by Listeners with Normal Hearing

Introduction of research study
Lexical tone is varying pattern of voice pitch in vowel (Yip, 2002) and is used to mark word meaning (Wong & Ettlinger,2011). Cantonese is one of the tone languages that is spoken by 70 million people worldwide (Li, Huang, Shi, Mai, & Chen, 1995). There are six contrastive tones based on differentfundamental frequency patterns (Mathew & Yip, 1994; Gandour, 1981). Therefore, lexical tone perception is essential for language understanding and expression in tone language speakers.
Cortical organization, or brain mapping, refers to functional anatomy of the brain. The present study will be the first study to systematically investigate the cortical organization of the brain in lexical tone perception of Cantonese speakers by the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Program
PhD in Surgery

Date of registration
August 2017

Supervisor
Professor Michael Chi Fai TONG

Co-supervisors
Professor Patrick Chun Man WONG
Professor Kathy Yuet Sheung LEE

Field of research/intended thesis title
Testing hearing in noise using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS): From neural correlates to intervention

Introduction of research study
Despite great successes booked in the research and development of the multichannel cochlear implant (CI) ever since its inception in the late 1970's, CI users still experience huge challenges in speech comprehension up until today. With the CI already relaying an already degraded signal, it's especially challenging to comprehend speech in noisy environments. Yet as we all experience in everyday life, we inescapably walk from one noisy setting into another: wind, traffic, music, babbling, you name it. So how could we potentially improve speech in noise comprehension? A major step in improving these postimplantation outcomes starts with the ability to accurately and specifically test these outcomes. This rings especially true for CI users where current clinical testing material are or are by and large unsuitable, such as infant CI recipients. Actually, this group is arguably the most in need for alternative testing methodology due to the ever-decreasing age of CI implantation. Fortunately, inspiration for such alternative methodology is quickly found. Recent developments in neuroimaging and the application of machine learning to neuroimaging problems are increasingly enabling us to decode a patient's medical conditions from measured brain activation patterns.
With that in mind, the aim of my thesis research is to assess the feasibility of using the functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) as clinical tool to augment current behaviour-based clinical testing materials of speech in noise comprehension.
Why fNIRS? The fNIRS is a comparatively inexpensive and noninvasive neuroimaging device with high tolerance for subject movement. Most importantly, fNIRS is compatible with wearers of the CI where electrophysiological methods and MRI are not. An added bonus is that the fNIRS generates only low volumes of auditory noise that might otherwise interfere with the auditory presentation of testing items. That said, it's not all as easy as pie though. A major challenge in using the fNIRS is its low spatial sensitivity compared to MRI. Stay tuned.

Program
PhD Surgery

Date of registration
1 August 2016

Supervisor
Professor TONG Chi Fai Michael

Field of research/intended thesis title
Electrophysiological assessment of swallowing in irradiated head and neck cancer patients

Introduction of research study
Post -irradiated head and neck cancer patients often suffer from various degree of dysphagia. Our aim is to evaluate the electrophysiology signals of the neck muscles involved in the process of swallowing by means of high density surface electromyography(HD-sEMG). The methodology described by Yu, Zhu, Xu and Li (2013) collected electrophysiological information from the anterior neck muscles using 96 channels (16x6 array) and constructed a dynamic topography to illustrate the muscles activation of the whole swallowing process. We will also compare the electrophysiological findings to conventional swallowing examinations in order to characterize dysphagia of post-irradiated patients.

Program
PhD Surgery

Date of registration
August 2015

Supervisor
Professor TONG Chi Fai Michael

Co-supervisors
Professor Kathy LEE
Professor Tan LEE

Field of research/intended thesis title
The Application of Speech Recognition Technology in Screening Speech Sound Disorders in Cantonese-Speaking Children

Introduction of research study
Speech sound disorders could be diagnosed by speech therapist using formal articulation tests and oral mechanism assessment. As children make age-appropriate and ago-inappropriate mistakes during their development, it makes parent/ teacher difficult to identify the problem and bring the child to do a formal assessment. Thus, it may cause delay of adequate therapy. An articulation-screening test does not have to be formal. The purpose of the screening is to quickly identify those people who communicate within normal limits and those who may have a communicative disorder. (Shipley. K and McAfee J., 2008) People in the second group could be seen or referred for complete evaluation in an earlier time. In recent years, computerized digital sound analysers are widely used in speech sound analysis in detecting voice disorders, speech and audio-signal processing, etc. In order to make speech screening more accessible to parents and teachers, the development of a Cantonese speech sound analyzer can be one of the ways. Speech sound analyzer is a computer program for acoustic analysis of speech sounds input into the program according to the features of the sound spectrum. However, there is no speech sound analysis program available for Cantonese speech. And this makes the development of application of computerized program in Speech Therapy difficult. The purpose of this study is to build a computer system that could analyse and transcribe Cantonese speech sounds and investigate if the accuracy of the screening test using this speech analysis software is high enough for screening children with speech sound disorders.

Program
PhD Surgery

Date of registration
August 2016

Supervisor
PProfessor Kathy LEE

Co-supervisors
Professor TONG Chi Fai Michael

Field of research/intended thesis title
Construction & Validation of a Receptive Vocabulary Computerized Adaptive Test for Cantonese Preschoolers

Introduction of research study
Vocabulary is a basic unit to build up more complex language ability. Early vocabulary development is correlated with multiple outcomes later in life, including language development, literacy and verbal intelligent.
Computerized adaptive testing is a form of computer-based test that adapts to examinee’s ability level. It improves test efficiency.
This project will provide an improved and evidence-based clinical tool for assessment of receptive vocabulary skills for Cantonese preschoolers.