Development and preliminary verification of a Mandarin-based hearing-aid fitting strategy

Area of Science:

• Audiology
• Speech and Hearing Sciences
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Hearing aid technology aims to improve audibility and speech understanding.
• Current fitting strategies like NAL-NL1 are widely used but may not fully optimize for specific language acoustics.
• Developing language-specific hearing aid prescriptions can enhance user experience.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and validate a novel hearing aid fitting strategy (Aescu HRL-1) tailored to the acoustic characteristics of Mandarin.
• To compare the objective and subjective performance of Aescu HRL-1 against the established NAL-NL1 strategy in Mandarin-speaking hearing aid users.

Main Methods:

• A preliminary study involved 15 subjects with sensorineural hearing loss.
• Participants used hearing aids fitted with Aescu HRL-1 and NAL-NL1 prescriptions alternately for one month each.
• Performance was evaluated using the Mandarin Monosyllable Recognition Test (MMRT), Mandarin Hearing in Noise Test (MHINT), International Outcome Inventory for Hearing Aids (IOI-HA), and a sound-quality questionnaire.

Main Results:

• No statistically significant differences were found in MMRT scores (79.9% for NAL-NL1 vs. 81.1% for Aescu HRL-1) or MHINT signal-to-noise ratios (0.87 dB vs. 0.85 dB).
• Subjective evaluations indicated higher overall sound quality and IOI-HA scores for the Aescu HRL-1 strategy.
• Participants reported Aescu HRL-1 provided a more natural, richer, and better sound quality.

Conclusions:

• The Aescu HRL-1 fitting strategy demonstrates speech recognition performance equivalent to NAL-NL1 for Mandarin-speaking hearing aid users.
• Aescu HRL-1 offers significant advantages in subjective sound quality and user-reported experience.
• This language-specific approach holds promise for improving hearing aid outcomes.