The rehabilitative needs of hearing-impaired adults depend on the degree of communication handicap experienced and on many other factors (environmental, behavioral, emotional, and attitudinal) that contribute to communication problems. The Communication Profile for the Hearing Impaired (CPHI) is a 145-item self-assessment inventory for adults. Its 25 scales encompass four areas: Communication Performance, Communication Environment, Communication Strategies, and Personal Adjustment. The inventory was developed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and pilot tested over a 3-year period on 827 patients who attended the Aural Rehabilitation Program at the Army Audiology and Speech Center. The rationale and methods used to develop the CPHI are discussed, and normative data for the Walter Reed population are presented.

The purpose of this research was to determine some of the effects of consonant recognition training on the speech recognition performance of hearing-impaired adults. Two groups of ten subjects each received seven hours of either auditory or visual consonant recognition training, in addition to a standard two-week, group-oriented, inpatient aural rehabilitation program. A third group of fifteen subjects received the standard two-week program, but no supplementary individual consonant recognition training. An audiovisual sentence recognition test, as well as tests of auditory and visual consonant recognition, were administered both before and ibltowing training. Subjects in all three groups significantly increased in their audiovisual sentence recognition performance, but subjects receiving the individual consonant recognition training improved significantly more than subjects receiving only the standard two-week program. A significant increase in consonant recognition performance was observed in the two groups receiving the auditory or visual consonant recognition training. The data are discussed from varying statistical and clinical perspectives.

The Communication Profile for the Hearing Impaired (CPHI) is a self-assessment inventory that provides 25 scores describing the Communication Performance, Communication Environment, Communication Strategies, and Personal Adjustment of hearing-impaired adults (Demorest & Erdman, 1986). Description of the content and measurement objective for each scale is given and an analysis of the psychometric properties of the 145 items in the CPHI is presented. Results are based on a sample of 433 active-duty military personnel tested at Walter Reed Army Medical Center during the final phase of CPHI development. Included are frequency distributions, descriptive statistics, item-total correlations, and factor structure of the items within each scale and across scales within each of the areas assessed by the CPHI. Applications of these data in clinical interpretation, construct validation, and further development of the CPHI scales are discussed.

The purpose of this article is to describe therapeutic factors that constitute mechanisms of change in group intervention. These therapeutic factors occur in groups with varied populations in varied settings and have important implications for group approaches to aural/audiologic rehabilitation. Factors included in the review are universality, instillation of hope, imparting information, altruism, imitative behavior, group cohesion, interpersonal learning, development of socializing techniques, recapitulation of the family, catharsis, and existential issues. The discussions largely are based on Irvin Yalom’s therapeutic factors but include references from a wide-range of sources throughout the medical, psychological, and rehabilitative fields.

No abstract

Factor structure of 23 scales of the Communication Profile for the Hearing Impaired (CPHI) (Demorest & Erdman, 1986, 1987) was examined in a sample of 1,226 patients who participated in the Aural Rehabilitation Program at Walter Reed Army Medical Center from 1985 through 1987. Five factors were identified: Adjustment, Reaction, Interaction, Communication Performance, and Communication Importance. To enhance clinical interpretation of the CPHI, it is recommended that factor scores be added to the communication profile.

No abstract

BackgroundSubjective tinnitus is the perception of sound in the absence of a corresponding external sound for which there is no known medical etiology. For a minority of individuals with tinnitus, the condition impacts their ability to lead a normal lifestyle and is severely debilitating. There is no known cure for tinnitus, so current therapy focuses on reducing the effect of tinnitus on the patient’s quality of life. Tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT) uses nonpsychiatric tinnitus-specific educational counseling and sound therapy in a habituation-based protocol to reduce the patient’s tinnitus-evoked negative reaction to, and awareness of, the tinnitus, with the ultimate goal of reducing the tinnitus impact on the patient’s quality of life. Some studies support the efficacy of TRT, but no trial to date has compared TRT with the current standard of care or evaluated the separate contributions of TRT counseling and sound therapy. The Tinnitus Retraining Therapy Trial (TRTT) is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter trial for individuals with intolerable tinnitus.Methods/designThe TRTT is enrolling active-duty and retired military personnel and their dependents with functionally adequate hearing sensitivity and severe tinnitus at US Air Force, Navy, and Army medical centers. Eligible study participants are randomized to TRT, partial TRT, or standard care to determine the efficacy of TRT and its components (TRT counseling and sound therapy). The primary outcome is change in score on the Tinnitus Questionnaire assessed longitudinally between baseline and follow-up (3, 6, 12, and 18 months following treatment). Secondary outcomes include subscale score changes in the Tinnitus Questionnaire, overall and subscale score changes in the Tinnitus Functional Index and Tinnitus Handicap Inventory, and change in the visual analog scale of the TRT Interview Form. Audiological outcomes include tinnitus pitch and loudness match and measures of loudness discomfort levels. The incidence of depression as a safety measure is assessed at each visit using the Beck Depression Inventory Fast Screen.Trial registrationClinicaltrials.gov NCT01177137.