Evaluation of binaural hearing aids in children using localization and speech intelligibility tasks

Because of an assumed relationship between localization and speech intelligibility in noise it has been suggested that a localization test provides a suitable measure for the evaluation of binaural aids in everyday situations. The present study shows a significant correlation (a) between binaural advantage in a localization task and the binaural advantage in speech intelligibility in noise task, and (b) between binaural advantage in judgement of separation of speech and noise and binaural advantage in a speech intelligibility in noise task. However, neither relationship was strong enough for accurate individual prediction of binaural advantages in speech intelligibility. Possible reasons for this are discussed, and the lines that further research might follow are suggested.