Clinical Effectiveness of an At-Home Auditory Training Program: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Area of Science:

• Audiology
• Hearing Science
• Rehabilitation Medicine

Background:

• Hearing loss affects older adults, impacting communication and quality of life.
• Hearing aids are common but may not fully restore speech understanding.
• Auditory training aims to improve listening skills and hearing aid benefit.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate an at-home auditory training program using frequent words for older adults with hearing impairment.
• To assess the effectiveness of this training in improving speech recognition with hearing aids.

Main Methods:

• A 5-week prospective, double-blind, placebo-controlled randomized trial was conducted.
• Participants (aged 54-80) with mild-to-moderate hearing loss were assigned to auditory training, audiobook listening (placebo), or no intervention.
• Primary outcome was Connected Speech test benefit; secondary was hearing aid performance self-report.

Main Results:

• The auditory training group showed significant improvement in recognizing trained words with hearing aids.
• No generalization of benefits to untrained words or materials was observed.
• Improvements for trained materials were sustained for at least 8.5 months post-intervention.

Conclusions:

• At-home auditory training with frequent words effectively improved recognition of trained materials.
• The training did not yield generalized benefits to untrained stimuli or improve hearing aid satisfaction.
• Further research is needed to enhance generalization in auditory training programs.