Benefit from, and acclimatization to, frequency compression hearing aids in experienced adult hearing-aid users

Abstract

Objective: The aim was to investigate whether frequency compression (FC) hearing aids provide additional benefit to that conferred by conventional amplification. Design: Participants wore the same hearing aid with FC enabled and disabled for six weeks (ABA design) in each condition. Speech recognition tests (in both quiet and in noise) were administered alongside two questionnaires. Performance was compared across the two signal processing conditions and at different time points. Study sample: Twelve experienced hearing-aid users (aged 65–84 years old) with moderate-to-severe high-frequency hearing loss participated in the study. Results: FC resulted in statistically significantly higher mean scores in all of the administered speech tests. Improvements over time were limited to high frequency phoneme perception. No effect of FC on self-report outcomes was observed. Conclusions: FC may lead to significant improvements in speech perception outcomes in both quiet and noise for many individuals. No participant was significantly disadvantaged by the use of FC.

Key Words::

• Frequency compression
• auditory acclimatization
• speech perception
• cognition
• sensorineural hearing loss

Acknowledgements

This study was funded by an ESRC CASE PhD studentship in conjunction with Phonak AG. The authors are grateful to the participants for donating their time, and to Catherine Siciliano, Kathryn Hopkins, Richard Baker, and Michael Akeroyd for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. The authors would also like to thank Kathryn Lewis and staff at the Audiology department at Withington Community Hospital, Manchester for help in recruiting participants, Keith Wilbraham for technical assistance, Anna Pepler for clinical assistance and Andrea Simpson for her help in getting the project started.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflict of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.