Methods will be developed and evaluated for measuring and predicting hearing aid outcomes. The predictions will be derived from experimental data obtained at the time the hearing aid is fitted. It is planned to develop a profile of indicators that are predictive of successful outcomes. Several new outcome measures will be developed for inclusion in this profile. A predictive profile of this type would allow consumers to make an informed choice when investing in a hearing aid and would know what to expect after the hearing aid has been fitted. Knowing what to expect is an important consideration and would reduce substantially the dissatisfaction that occurs when the hearing aid does not meet expectations.
Methods will be developed and evaluated for predicting hearing aid outcome measures. The predictions will derived from experimental data obtained at the time the hearing aid is fitted. It is planned to develop a profile of indicators that are preditive of successful outcomes on important aspects hearing aid use. A predictive profile of this type would allow consumers to make an informed choice when investing in a hearing aid and would know what to expect after the hearing aid has been fitted. Knowing what to expect is an important consideration and would reduce substantially the dissatisfaction when the hearing aid does not meet expectations thereby reducing the large number of unsatisfactory outcomes with a corresponding increase in the number of reasonably satisfied outcomes. The key problem is to develop and evaluate indicators that will provide reliable predictions of successful outcome on important aspects of hearing aid use. A battery of tests that have demonstrated a significant correlation with well established self-report outcome measure will be refined to improve the correlation with the output measure. An improvement in the correlation will allow for more accurate predictions of this output measure from measurements taken prior to fitting a hearing aid. A new test will be developed that takes into account the interactive nature of human communication and which will be predictive of the extent to which a hearing impaired person is able to participate in a conversation. Normative data will be obtained on the test with both younger and older subjects. Practical methods of field evaluation will be implemented using ratings of sound quality and speech clarity to evaluate the performance of the hearing aid. The method of evaluation will include monitoring of the clients acoustic environment at the time the ratings are obtained. The final stage of the project will evaluate the accuracy of the method of prediction with several different self-report output measures.
| Plant, Geoff; Bernstein, Claire Marcus; Levitt, Harry (2015) Optimizing Performance in Adult Cochlear Implant Users through Clinician Directed Auditory Training. Semin Hear 36:296-310 |
