Reexamination of Data on the Acclimatization of Hearing Aid Benefit Using Experienced Hearing Aid Wearers as Controls

The purpose of this article was to present a reanalysis of data on auditory acclimatization published several years ago by the author but without the separation of the results for new and experienced hearing aid users, with the latter serving as a control group.

Following the separation of the data into two groups, new versus experienced hearing aid users, mixed general linear model analyses were performed for each of eight outcome measures, namely, three auditory speech recognition measures covering a range of materials and listening conditions and five self-report measures pertaining to speech communication and hearing difficulties. For each of the outcome measures, postfit interval was the within-subject variable with values of 1, 6, or 12 months and group was the between-subjects variable. In this approach, auditory acclimatization effects are manifest as significant interaction effects between postfit interval and group.

No significant interactions between postfit interval and group were observed across the eight outcome measures. In most cases, significant main effects of group were observed, but these were expected given the differences in audiometric hearing loss between groups. In addition, five of eight main effects of postfit interval were significant, but the pattern of variation over postfit interval varied among these five outcome measures, and only one of these had a pattern that could be consistent with auditory acclimatization.

The results presented from these reanalyses of data from 111 adults, 74 new and 37 experienced hearing aid wearers, over a 1-year study period, a relatively large and long study based on the research literature on auditory acclimatization, did not support the occurrence of auditory acclimatization.