Children learn a great deal through the auditory system. Classroom instruction is presented primarily through the teacher's speech, or through video or tape recordings. Many students are auditory learners: They learn best when information is presented to them verbally. Students with hearing loss or other learning disabilities, however, may have difficulty with comprehension of auditory information (
Telephone communication remains a major obstacle for hearing-impaired listeners. Even with the use of amplification, many hearing aid (HA) users report significant difficulty understanding telephone conversations. Although much effort has recently been focused on determining ideal HA performance for typical communication settings, less has been directed toward preferred HA responses during telephone coupling conditions. If one assumes that telecoil coupling strategies may require different HA performance characteristics because of line noise, filtering effects, coupling method, and output limitations imposed by the telephone system and receiver, then further study of listeners' preferred HA response characteristics under telecoil coupling conditions appears warranted.This study evaluated the preferred real ear aided response (REAR) for a group of hearing-impaired listeners under acoustic and telecoil conditions when coupled to a standard telephone receiver. Findings revealed that subjects preferred substantially more low-frequency gain than would be predicted using three popular prescriptive formulae. In general, a gradually rising to flat response was preferred by most of the hearing-impaired listeners. Implications for HA fitting and management will be discussed.
This study compares the contralateral suppressive effect of the auditory efferent system on cochlear microphonics versus distortion-product OAEs (DPOAEs) in order to identify the potential versus the mechanical changes of the outer hair cells. This was achieved by recording the CM and DPOAEs from the right ear of 16 normal-hearing young female adults with and without broad band noise (BBN) in the left ears. DPOAEs were recorded at 0.5, 2, and 4 kHz F2 frequencies, and at 0.5 and 2 kHz tone bursts and clicks for CM using condensation and rarefaction polarity. Results revealed that both DPOAEs and CM recordings showed suppression and enhancement effects of BBN, but there were no statistically significant differences within each recording (with-without BBN) and between recordings (CM versus DPOAEs) (P = 0.923 at 0.5 kHz, P = 0.858 at 2 kHz, and P = 0.332 at 4 kHz or clicks). This could be related to the small effect and the lack of sensitive enough equipment. In general, larger effect was observed at 0.5 kHz in DPOAEs, but at 2 kHz in CM. Interestingly, when the stimulus polarity of the CM was changed from condensation to rarefaction at 2 kHz in the presence of BBN, six participants showed CM recordings that changed from suppression to enhancement or vice versa, suggesting a possible relationship.
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