| Use of paired comparison assessment in the
clinic to evaluate hearing aid fittings of severely/profoundly
hearing-impaired children
Patricia Van Buynder1, Teresa Ching2, Mandy Hill2, 1 Australian Hearing, Australia 2 National Acoustic Laboratories, Australia 3 Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia 4 Garfield Barwick School, Australia 5 St. Gabriel's School for Hearing-impaired Children, Australia Research has shown that frequency response requirements are not completely predictable from the audiogram, especially for people with severe hearing impairment. To provide optimal amplification for each individual, it is essential that prescription-based hearing aid fittings be evaluated. This study reports the implementation of a clinical procedure used to evaluate the NAL-RP prescription for severely/profoundly hearing-impaired children. The children were fitted with programmable hearing aids, and were required to compare speech amplified using either the prescription or some variations from it. A small group of children also tried wearing hearing aids on alternative settings. During the trial period, their speech recognition abilities were tested, and their auditory behaviour was recorded by teachers and parents. The results of the home trials were consistent with the paired comparison results, lending support to the use of the clinical paired comparison procedure. The paired comparison results for 22 children showed that, on average, they used more gain (averaged from 500Hz to 2000Hz) than the NAL-RP prescription, and that the prescription is close to optimal for all except one child. The advantages of the procedure and the practical constraints will be discussed from a clinical perspective. |