Automated Methods of Assessing Hearing Aid Performance in Listeners With Impaired Hearing

The methods that have been described, although still under development, are intended to demonstrate that the issues of sound quality, speech intelligibility, and loudness may be addressed in a clinical setting in a reasonable amount of time. Being automated, these methods are relatively time-efficient, and may become more so as they are refined. Being database oriented, these methods make it easy to monitor individual clients over time, and also provide an efficient way to evaluate the success rate of individual circuits across listeners with similar hearing losses. Individually, these techniques provide only some of the information that may indicate whether a particular fitting may succeed. Taken together, these behavioral methods will provide a great deal of both subjective and objective information that will help the dispenser not only decide which of several hearing aids may be best for a user, but also how a given instrument may be adjusted to provide the maximum benefit. By including the formal assessment of sound quality, speech intelligibility, and loudness in the hearing aid evaluation, the needs of the user are more likely to be met, and the degree of satisfaction achieved is likely to be higher than if the evaluation consists solely of matching the real ear insertion response to a prescribed target.