Lab News

Hearing aid beamformers are intended to emphasize the talker’s voice and reduce surrounding noise. But are beamformers right for everyone? In new data presented at the 2022 International Hearing Aid Conference, we examined the benefit of a beamformer in which the optimal polar plot was selected by analysis of signal inputs across both ears (sometimes called “ear to ear” directionality).

On August 16, 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued their final rule for over-the-counter hearing aids. What does this mean for listeners with hearing loss? Over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids are approved for adults with mild or moderate hearing loss, and can be purchased by consumers without seeing an audiologist or physician.

During conversations in noise, we don’t hear every word or sound. Top-down perceptual restoration allows us to fill in missed information, but what abilities make this process easier for some people than others?

Older adults with hearing loss often report they have difficulty understanding their young grandchildren, even when wearing hearing aids that improve audibility. We collaborated with Dr. Marisha Speights Atkins to examine perception of child talkers by older adults, using child speech from the Speech Exemplars and Evaluation Database (SEED).

Any hearing loss can affect communication, but listeners with severe loss face the greatest challenges. For those listeners, speech is less audible, more distorted, and more susceptible to background noise. How should we address the needs of listeners with severe and profound loss?

Difficulties associated with spoken conversation are a primary impairment for adults with mild cognitive impairment or dementia, but most studies on communication affected by Alzheimer’s dementia did not consider – or treat--the additive impact of hearing loss.

Providers within and outside audiology have asserted that screening and awareness of cognitive decline should be part of treatment decisions. We were interested to know how and when audiologists screened for cognitive change.

Listening can be difficult—and hearing aids alone may not be sufficient to improve communication--when the speaker is at a distance, in a noisy environment, or in a reverberant space. In a recent study, adult participants with sensorineural hearing loss were provided with a remote microphone, the Roger Select, for a one-month trial.