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Two audiologists discuss the measurement of hearing aid benefits by means of the Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit (APHAB). They also report on numbers of listening problems identified using the APHAB subscales, and identify areas where further benefits are more and less likely. (DB)

The SIR test was created for use in hearing aid comparisons. The test protocol obtains listener judgments of the intelligibility of connected speech passages. This study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the SIR test in differentiating among hearing aids. Specific research questions were (a) Is the sensitivity of the SIR test sufficient for differentiating among very similar and slightly dissimilar hearing aids? (b) Does the SIR test result in reliable hearing aid rankings? and (c) What are the effects of using shortened connected speech passages? Ten listeners with hearing impairments rated the intelligibility of both full-length and shortened SIR test passages while wearing each of four individually selected hearing aids representing three different frequency/gain prescriptions. Results suggested that the SIR test is capable of differentiating among slightly dissimilar hearing aids and that hearing aid rankings resulting from speech intelligibility ratings were reliable. The decision to use full-length or shortened SIR test passage depends on the outcome the user wishes to maximize. Under the conditions used in this study, maximum sensitivity was achieved with ratings from five shortened passages, whereas maximum reliability was obtained with three full-length passages.

Three experiments were performed to evaluate the use of subjective intelligibility estimations as a method for measuring hearing aid benefit. Subjective and objective speech intelligibility scores were compared for young normal-hearing and elderly hearing -impaired listeners. Objective intelligibility scores were obtained using the Connected Speech Test (CST). This test consists of conversationally produced passages of speech that the listener repeats sentence by sentence. To provide subjective intelligibility scores, listeners estimated the percentage that they understood of each CST passage. Comparison of the two types of scores revealed that they were closely related in both groups of subjects (r = .82-.92). Although the two types of scores were essentially equal for normal-hearing subjects, the hearing-impaired listeners tended to produce subjective estimations of intelligibility that were significantly lower than their objective scores. Manipulation of visual cues and amplification, in an attempt to influence the hearing-impaired listeners' expectation of understanding speech, had no effect on the subjective-objective score differential. The difference between subjective and objective scores in the hearing-impaired group was not related to audiometric variables such as speech reception threshold, audiogram, or duration of hearing loss. It was concluded that comparative hearing aid evaluations using subjective intelligibility estimates would usually produce the same relative outcome as evaluations using the objective intelligibility measurement procedure. However, scores obtained with the objective procedure had smaller critical differences. Thus, when both types of scores are based on the same number of passages, the objective measurement procedure would be the more sensitive to difference among hearing aids. KEY WORDS: hearing aid, speech intelligibility, subjective measures

Recent research has established a connection between hearing aid (HA) users' cognition and speech recognition performance with short and long compression release times (RT). Contradictive findings prevent researchers from using cognition to predict RT prescription. We hypothesized that the linguistic context of speech recognition test materials was one of the factors that accounted for the inconsistency. The present study was designed to examine the relationship between HA users' cognition and their aided speech recognition performance with short and long RTs using materials with various linguistic contexts. Thirty-four older HA users' cognitive abilities were quantified using a reading span test. They were fitted with behind-the-ear style HAs with adjustable RT settings. Three speech recognition tests were used: the word-in-noise (WIN) test, the American four alternative auditory feature (AFAAF) test, and the Bamford-Kowal-Bench speech-in-noise (BKB-SIN) test. The results showed that HA users with high cognitive abilities performed better on the AFAAF and the BKB-SIN than those with low cognitive abilities when using short RT. None of the speech recognition tests produced significantly different performance between the two RTs for either cognitive group. These findings did not support our hypothesis. The results suggest that cognition might not be important in prescribing RT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two studies, each conducted with 10 adults with mild to moderately severe hearing loss, compared the effectiveness of custom in-the-ear (ITE) or over-the-ear (OTE) hearing aid fittings. ITE fittings typically yielded speech intelligibilty that was equal to the better OTE fitting. (Author/CB)

Three studies investigated comfortable loudness levels with particular reference to their application to hearing aid gain prescriptions. The studies, involving 33 normal hearing adults and 77 adults with hearing impairments, suggest that comfortable loudness levels for continuous speech bands can be estimated rather accurately, quickly, and with good reliability. (JDD)

Background: The Four Alternative Auditory Feature test (FAAF) is a word-based closed-set speech recognition test. Because the original test materials were recorded in British English dialect, it is not appropriate for use in the United States. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to produce an American dialect FAAF (AFAAF). Research Design: The AFAAF materials spoken by a native American-English speaking male were recorded and digitally edited. In the validation study, the AFAAF was administered monaurally at five signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) in both ears for each listener. Study Sample: A total of 20 young adults with normal hearing participated in the validation study. Data Collection and Analysis: For each participant, speech recognition scores were collected in one session. The speech level was fixed at 70 dB SPL and the steady-state talker-matched noise level was varied, resulting in five SNRs from -1 5 to -5 dB . One full list (80 words) was used for each SNR. For each participant, a performance-intensity (PI) function was fit to the discrete mean percent correct scores for the five SNRs according to a best-fit, three-parameter sigmoid function. In addition, scores for the left and right ears were compared to examine test-retest reliability. Results: Results show that the slope of the PI function is 6% per dB, the mean test-retest difference scores for the five SNRs are within 3 rationalized arcsine units (rau), and the 95% critical difference for the 80-word scores is 12 rau. Compared with the FAAF, the slope of the PI function for the AFAAF is slightly less steep. Test-retest reliability of the AFAAF is at least equal to that of the FAAF. Conclusions: It is concluded that the AFAAF is similar but not identical to the FAAF. The AFAAF is now available for measuring speech recognition performance in listeners who use American English as a native language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]