Previous research has provided inconsistent evidence for the relations between young children's hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) functioning and their temperament, parenting, and adjustment. Building biopsychosocial models of adjustment, we examined how temperamental inhibition and maternal punishment contributed to preschoolers' adrenocortical activity while interacting with adult strangers. We also examined whether HPA functioning ...

Most practitioners believe that use of two hearing aids is the ideal fitting for adults with bilateral symmetrical hearing loss. However, previous research has consistently shown that a substantial proportion of these patients actually prefer to use only one hearing aid. This study explored whether this pattern of preferences is ...

Current approaches to fit bone-anchored hearing aid (Baha) rely heavily on patient feedback of "loudness" and "sound quality." Audiologists are limited to this approach for two reasons: (1) the technology in current models of Baha does not allow for much fine-tuning of frequency response or maximum output on an individual ...

The objective of this study was to assess the appropriateness of hearing aid fittings within a sample of adult cochlear implant recipients who use a hearing aid in the contralateral ear (i.e., bimodal stimulation). The hearing aid gain was measured using real ear testing for 14 postlingually deaf English-speaking adults ...

There are few cases in the literature that report the auditory effects of heroin overdose. Follow-up and rehabilitation in these cases are unreported. In the case reported here, a 29-year-old woman presented with sudden bilateral sensorineural hearing loss subsequent to reported heroin overdose. She was fitted with binaural amplification and ...

A method for fitting multichannel compression hearing aids with an extended high-frequency response, called CAMEQ2-HF, was described by . This study describes an evaluation of the method, using a 16-channel behind the ear hearing aid incorporating slow-acting compression and providing gain for frequencies up to 7500 Hz. Eleven participants with ...

Three-dimensional sound localization of speech in anechoic space was examined for eleven listeners with sensorineural hearing loss. The listeners were fitted bilaterally with CIC and BTE hearing aids having similar bandwidth capabilities. The goal was to determine whether differences in microphone placement for these two styles (CICs at the ear ...

Objective:To investigate the utilisation of bone-anchored hearing aids and Softband, as well as the effects on quality of life, amongst the paediatric and young adult population of Freeman Hospital, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK.Method:Retrospective, anonymised, cross-sectional survey using the Glasgow Benefit Inventory and Listening Situation Questionnaire (parent version), administered at least ...

This paper presents a physical evaluation of four feedback cancellation techniques in commercial hearing aids and two implementations of a recently developed feedback cancellation algorithm. Based on physical measures for detecting instability, oscillations and distortion, three performance aspects were measured: 1) the added stable gain compared to the hearing aid ...

Hearing loss is one of the most common sensory impairments and affects almost 10% of the adult population. The percentage of adults with hearing loss markedly increases with advancing age. The differential diagnosis for patients presenting with hearing loss is extensive, but can often be narrowed with a directed hearing ...

In tone languages such as Cantonese, a change in tone denotes a change in lexical meaning. The present study investigates the functional benefit of hearing devices in assisting tone perception among children with profound hearing impairment. Fifty-two children with profound hearing loss were categorized into two groups based on their ...

Munro and Trotter [Inter J Audiol 45, 684-688, 2006] reported an asymmetry in uncomfortable loudness levels (ULLs) in a preliminary study using 12 experienced unilateral hearing aids users. The aim of the present study was to investigate ULLs in a larger sample of listeners with unilateral and bilateral hearing aid ...

The International Outcome Inventory for Hearing Aids (IOI-HA) is a seven-item hearing-specific questionnaire. It was developed with the purpose of evaluating the efficacy of hearing aid rehabilitation. Few psychometric properties have been presented for a Swedish translation of the IOI-HA. Furthermore, previous studies have examined the IOI-HA in mainly sensorineural ...

ISO 9001 recommends a customer survey both pre and post hearing aid fitting. A lot of different German questionnaires are in use, but most of them have not been investigated by a large number of patients. The APHAB is well evaluated in the US. We want to compare our APHAB ...

Many young children with permanent hearing loss do not receive hearing aids and related professional services, in part because of public and private financing limitations. In 2006 the Children's Audiology Financing Workgroup was convened by the National Center for Hearing Assessment and Management to evaluate and make recommendations about public ...

This study explored experiences surrounding hearing aid use and non-use in older women with hearing loss. A narrative approach was used to gain an in-depth understanding of the meaning and contextual issues that impact upon the adaptation process of older adults and their transitions in using hearing devices. Four women ...

STUDY OBJECTIVE: This study evaluated how closely the DSL v5.0 a prescription could be approximated with hearing aids, its relationship to preferred listening levels (PLLs) of adults with acquired hearing loss, and the self-reported outcomes of the resulting fittings. PARTICIPANTS: Thirty adults with varying degrees and configurations of hearing loss ...

To assess the efficacy of the bone-anchored hearing aid (BAHA) in the rehabilitation of single-sided deafness (SSD). Retrospective case-control series review. Tertiary referral unit. Fifty-eight consecutive patients that had a bone-anchored hearing aid for single-sided deafness completed outcome questionnaires, building upon earlier audiological assessment of 19 patients. Single-sided deafness controls ...

A hallmark of quality clinical practice in audiology should be the ongoing measurement of outcomes in order to improve practice. The aims of this study were to describe outcomes for a large sample of clients fitted with hearing aids and to investigate factors associated with mean IOI-HA scores, with a ...

Hearing aids are commonly used for tinnitus management ( Kochkin & Tyler, 2008 ) but there is limited evidence to support their use. The purpose of this study was to quantify the effectiveness of hearing aids and counseling as a tinnitus treatment option. This study is a retrospective analysis of ...

OBJECTIVE: Benefit and quality-of-life analysis in the older adult bone-anchored hearing aid (BAHA) users. STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective evaluation. METHODS: Four questionnaires (Glasgow Benefit Inventory, Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit [APHAB], Nijmegen Cochlear Implant Questionnaire [NCIQ], and the Hearing Handicap Inventory for the Elderly screening version [HHIE-S]) were used. RESULTS: ...

BACKGROUND: The use of acoustic signals to mask, mix with, or ease the distress associated with tinnitus has been clinically employed for decades. It has been proposed that expanding acoustic options for tinnitus sufferers due to personal preferences is desirable. Fractal tones incorporate many useful characteristics of music while avoiding ...

Normal hearing listeners exploit the formant transition (FT) detection to identify place of articulation for stop consonants. Neuro-imaging studies revealed that short FT induced less cortical activation than long FT. To determine the ability of hearing impaired listeners to distinguish short and long formant transitions (FT) from vowels of the ...

OBJECTIVES: To determine the effect of spectral differences between stimuli used for verification of hearing aid gain in nonlinear devices. DESIGN: The spectra of nine stimuli from five analyzing systems were obtained. RESULTS: Most stimuli closely duplicated one of two well-specified spectra. The difference between these two input spectra resulted ...

Hearing loss may lead to major changes in the social and emotional aspects of daily life. This follow-up study investigated the effect of hearing-aid use on emotional experience in adults with hearing impairment. Thirteen individuals with impaired hearing were tested before and after 6 months of hearing-aid use, and were ...

Hearing loss is a common health issue that affects nearly 10% of the world population as indicated by many international studies. The hearing impaired typically experience more frustration, anxiety, irritability, depression, and disorientation than those with normal hearing levels. The standard rehabilitation tool for hearing impairment is an electronic hearing ...

For the characterization of hearing aids, a new test method has been defined in the new International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standard 60118-15. For this characterization, the hearing aid will be set to actual user settings as programmed by standard fitting software from the hearing aid manufacturer. To limit the variation ...

OBJECTIVE: To the best of our knowledge, the use of the 8.5-mm abutment and its long-term outcome in the pediatric population has not been reported in the medical literature. We describe our experience with the use of the 8.5-mm abutment in a series of 16 children who have required a ...

OBJECTIVES: To report the audiometric outcomes of patients with severe sensorineural hearing loss and who have been fitted with a Middle Ear Transducer (MET) on one side and fitted with an optimized conventional hearing aid on the other side. STUDY DESIGN: The MET fitting results were measured and compared with ...

With the physical, emotional and cognitive effects of senility, elderly people, especially those with impaired hearing, need rehabilitation for improving their life conditions. Hearing aids are frequently used to improve their daily life communications and activities. The aim of this study was to report the cognitive and psychological benefits of ...

The present investigation further analysed results of a previously reported survey with a large sample of hearing aid owners (Bertoli et al, 2009) to determine the individual and technological factors related to hearing aid outcome. In particular the associations of hearing loss, level of signal processing, and fitting type (bilateral ...

The treatment of sensorineural hearing loss is based on hearing aids, also known as individual sound amplification devices. The hearing aids purchased by the Brazilian Government, aiming at fulfilling public policies, are based on dedicated components, which bring about benefits, but also render them expensive and may impair repair services ...

BACKGROUND: Many people hear voices but do not access psychiatric services and their experiences are largely unknown, not least because of the difficulty in contacting such people. This study investigates the beliefs held about voices, distress experienced, and provides a topographical account of the experience of hearing voices in a ...

BACKGROUND: Open canal hearing instruments differ in method of sound delivery to the ear canal, distance between the microphone and the receiver, and physical size of the devices. Moreover, RITA (receiver in the aid) and RITE (receiver in the ear) hearing instruments may also differ in terms of retention and ...

hearing impairment has a negative impact on communication. This impact can be minimized by hearing aids fitting and auditory training. to verify the effectiveness of auditory training in elderly individuals, new users of hearing aids, regarding the benefit in fitting. forty-two individuals with mild to moderate neurosensorial hearing loss, ranging ...

The purpose of this study was to examine the characteristics of wind noise at the output of in-the-ear, in-the-canal, and completely-in-the-canal hearing aids. The hearing aids were programed to have linear amplification with matching flat frequency responses for directional (DIR) and omnidirectional (OMNI) microphones. The microphone output was then recorded ...

The purpose of the study was to determine whether hearing aids with binaural processing improve performance during a localization and a hearing in noise task. The study included 15 participants between the ages of 29 and 68 who had a bilateral symmetrical sensorineural hearing loss and who had no prior ...

Audibility has been a focus of hearing aid research for much of the hearing aid field's existence. With modern hearing aids, audibility no longer limits performance for hearing aid wearers with moderate hearing impairment. Limitations in suprathreshold auditoryperception now need to be better understood in order to determine existing hearing ...

Electromagnetic balanced armature receivers [Hunt, Electroacoustics, Chap. 7] are used exclusively to generate acoustic output in hearing aids. These transducers are much more efficient than electrodynamic transducers and are capable of delivering upward of 140 dB of sound pressure to person. In an effort to maximize system gain in a ...

OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS: Audiologic rehabilitation of individuals with profound unilateral sensorineural hearing loss (USNHL) has traditionally been limited to the use of air-conduction contralateral routing of sound (CROS) hearing aids. Treatment for these individuals has expanded with new applications of the bone-anchored hearing aid (BAHA), transcranial hearing aid (t-CROS), and the cochlear ...

The performance of a hearing aid is directly related to its vibro-acoustics characteristics, which must be taken in account during the design process. Different vibro-acoustic aspects of a hearing aid may be analyzed, including the structural transmission from the loudspeaker to the microphone, which may lead to an unwanted feedback, ...

The aim of this study was to determine the presence and nature of bacterial flora on hearing aids earmoulds in a children's population. The study population consisted of 119 children referred to Imam Ali and Rudaky Schools in Ahvaz, Iran. Three samples were taken from surface of hearing aids earmoulds; ...

Historically, the primary focus of hearing aid development has been on improving speech perception for those with hearing loss. Modern-day hearing-aid wearers, however, face many different types of acoustic signals, such as music, that require different types of processing. Music signals differ from speech signals in a variety of fundamental ...

As sensors small, high-gain devices, hearing aid microphones must be tiny, have high signal-to-noise ratios, be relatively insensitive to vibration from the nearby speaker, and operate at low hearing aid battery voltages. The subminiature backplate-electret condenser microphone was developed in the early 1970s specifically for hearing aids, with a very ...

Due to individual characteristics such as head size, earmould type, and earmould venting, the directional benefit that an individual will obtain from a hearing aid cannot be predicted from average data. It is therefore desirable to measure real ear directional benefit. This paper demonstrates a method to measure real ear ...

The purpose of the study was to develop and examine a list of potential variables that may account for variability in the dispensing rates of four common hearing aid features. A total of 29 potential variables were identified and placed into the following categories: (1) characteristics of the audiologist, (2) ...

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the effect of hearing screening on long-term hearing outcomes in a general population of older veterans. DESIGN: Hearing loss in the elderly is underdetected and undertreated. Routine hearing screening has been proposed, but it is not clear whether screening identifies patients who are sufficiently motivated to adhere ...

For hearing aid fittings, it is important to know the delivered sound pressure level (SPL) at the tympanic membrane (TM) over a wide frequency range. Because it is infeasible to measure the SPL at the TM clinically, an indirect estimation based on measurements away from the TM is often used ...

Cranial nerve VIII brings sound and information about one's position and movement in space into the brain. The auditory and vestibular systems subserve several functions basic to clinical medicine and to psychiatry. This article covers the basics of cranial nerve VIII, hearing and vestibular systems, including common problems with hearing ...

PURPOSE: The objectives of this study were to estimate the prevalence of hearing problems among a national cohort of emergency medical service (EMS) professionals, determine factors associated with hearing problems, and estimate the percentage of EMS professionals who utilize hearing protection. METHODS: Utilizing results from a questionnaire, individuals who reported ...