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Original Article

Effect of homolateral and contralateral routing of signals through Body-Worn hearing aids on the localization ability of Hearing-Impaired people

Pages 346-359 | Published online: 07 Jul 2009
 

Abstract

This investigation compared the localization abilities in the horizontal plane of 22 hearing-impaired adults (9 with symmetrical conductive and 13 with symmetrical sensorineural hearing impairment) whilst listening to speech through body-worn hearing aids in two different ways: (a) hearing-aid microphone placed on the same side as the stimulated ear (homolateral routing of signals); (b) hearing-aid microphone placed on the opposite side to the stimulated ear (contralateral routing of signals). It was found that the localization performances of all the subjects, especially when using binaural hearing aids, under homolateral routing of signals, were far superior to their respective localization performances achieved with contralateral routing of signals.

Résumé

Nous avons comparé la capacité de localiser des sons sur le plan horizontal chez 22 adultes atteints de surdité. Les sujets avaient des pertes bilatérales symétriques, soit surdités de transmission (9 sujets), soit surdités neuro-sensorielles (13 sujets). Les sujets devaient écouter des messages vocaux avec l'aide d'appareils de correction auditive portés sur le corps. Les appareils ont été utilisés de deux manières différentes: a) le microphone placé du méme côté que l'oreille stimulée (route homolatérale de stimulation); b) le microphone placé du côté opposé à l'oreille stimulée (route contralatérale de stimulation).

Nous avons constaté que la capacité de localiser des sons de tous les sujets, surtout quand ils portaient des appareils binauraux, était bien supérieure dans la condition de stimulation homolatérale aue dans la condition de stimulation controlatérale.

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