Comparing Objective & Subjective Measures of Speech Recognition in Experienced Hearing Aid Users Jodi A. Cook There is a great deal of interest in outcome measures for the entire health care system including audiology and more specifically hearing aid fittings. It would be beneficial to administer an objective test that would predict hearing aid outcomes prior to a patient being fitted with hearing aids; however that test, or test battery does not exist. Perhaps that objective test does not exist because current testing evaluates only the loss of audibility and does not challenge the hearing-impaired listener's temporal processing ability. The purpose of this project was to evaluate a speech test in fluctuating background noise and correlate the results with benefit reported by current hearing aid users. Hearing-impaired listeners were tested with and without their personal hearing aids. The HINT (Nilsson, et al., 1994) sentences were used and a percent correct word score was calculated to determine speech recognition ability in a steady-state speech-shaped noise and a 10-Hz square-wave modulated speech-shaped noise at three signal-to-noise ratios (-5, 0, and 5 dB). Each subject also completed two questionnaires (APHAB, Cox & Alexander, 1995; SADL, Cox & Alexander, 1999), regarding their experience with and without hearing aids. The objective speech scores were correlated with the subjective questionnaire scores. The results will be discussed in terms of the relationship between an objective speech in modulated noise task and the subjective benefit reported by hearing aid users. |