Binaural hearing aids for high-frequency hearing loss

A recent study has examined the differences between certain monaural and binaural frequency responses as used in hearing aids for persons with high-frequency (often noise induced) hearing loss, in terms of both speech discrimination score and subjective rating methods. Slight variations in speech discrimination score resulted from changing the frequency response of a monaurally fitted aid while subjective preferences favoured an aid with adaptive low-frequency gain regulation for more severe high-frequency losses. A much more pronounced improvement, was however found for a binaural fitting of the preferred aid, resulting in increased discrimination score and subjective ratings of sound quality, speech clarity and overall impression. A binaural fitting of a subjectively preferred monaural hearing aid produced speech discrimination scores which were at least as good as, if not better than, those obtained from the optimum monoaural fitting. These findings are thought to have important implications for the fitting of hearing aids.