A common complaint by people with hearing loss is the great difficulty they experience in understanding speech in a noisy environment. Hearing aids, unfortunately, amplify both speech and background noise. It is possible to improve speech understanding in noise to some extent by honing one's listening skills. A self-guiding training system will be developed to help hearing-aid users improve their ability to understand speech in the presence of background noise. Modern technology will be used, such as a relatively inexpensive personal computer, or an even less expensive DVD player, to develop a system that is convenient, entertaining and easy to use. The intent is to develop a system that will be widely used, thereby improving the quality of life for substantial numbers of people with hearing loss.
Audio-visual training materials will be developed for a self-guiding training program to help hearing-aid users improve their speech reception skills in a noisy environment. Three experiments will be performed to evaluate the training system. The first experiment will evaluate a computer-based version of the system. The improvement in speech reception in noise will be measured for both new and experienced users of hearing aids after a 6-week training period. The second experiment will evaluate two DVD-based versions of the training program. The third experiment will evaluate the training system using audition only.
