Licensed NAL Products

HearLab

Developed by the National Acoustic Laboratories and the Hearing CRC, and manufactured and distributed by Frye Electronics (Oregon, USA), HEARLab is a new test instrument that enables the clinician to measure cortical responses in people with and without hearing aids. It is based on the standard PC with a versatile electronic interface for stimulus presentation and response acquisition. The interface allows the software to fully control stimulus levels, signal pathways and response conditioning. This enables new audiological tests to be added to the HEARLab system by developing new software modules. The first software module released is NAL-ACA which is a hearing assessment module that provides two different types of assessments:

1. Aided Cortical Assessment (ACA) enables the clinician to evaluate hearing aid fittings using real speech sound presented through a speaker. By measuring the evoked cortical responses of an infant, with or without hearing aids, it is possible to estimate the audibility of speech sounds by that infant.

2. Cortical Threshold Estimate (CTE) is used to estimate unaided hearing thresholds. Tones are presented via insert earphone or a bone viabrator and the evoked cortical responses are automatically detected by HEARLab .

Further modules are under development.

HEARLab is available for purchase in Europe and Australia, and is awaiting regulatory approval in the USA.