Hearing Loss, Bilateral or Unilateral
Conditions
Keywords
Hearing Loss
Brief summary
Hearing impaired participants will be fit with study devices which will have three different hearing aid programs. Speech intelligibility will be measured using validated tests for each of the three hearing aid programs. The order of the hearing aid programs will be randomized across participants and each participant will be blinded as to the programs being tested.
Detailed description
Program 1 is the current default in the commercially available devices. Programs 2 and 3 are being tested against the current default.
Interventions
Commercially available receiver-in-canal (RIC) style hearing aid manufactured by Sonova.
Sponsors
Sonova AG
Study design
Allocation
NA
Intervention model
SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Intervention model description
All participants will be tested with the same three hearing aid programs, but the order of the programs will be randomized for each participant.
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to 95 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* Bilateral moderate to severe hearing loss (N3-N4) * Experienced hearing aid user * Fluent in English * Cognitively able to complete complex listening tasks
Exclusion criteria
* Unilateral hearing loss * New hearing aid user * Unable or unwilling to complete complex listening tasks
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| AZBio Speech in noise testing | Day 1 of 1 day study | A list of 20 sentences is presented from a speaker located in front of the participant. At the same time, background noise is presented from the same speaker at various SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio) levels. That is, speech may be presented 5 dB lower/softer than the noise up to 5 dB higher/louder than the noise. The number of words correct is counted and a percentage from the total number of words presented is calculated. A higher percentage is better and indicates better speech intelligibility. This test will be conducted for all three hearing aid program settings. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Subjective ratings of sound quality | Day 1 of 1 day study | Participants will be asked to choose between two of the hearing aid programs using an A/B comparison, on the following dimensions: clarity, speech naturalness, speech volume, noise intrusion, listening effort, overall sound quality, and preference. Participants will compare program setting 1 to program setting 2 and choose their preference for each above mentioned dimension. Additionally, participants will compare program setting 1 to program setting 3 and choose preference for each dimension. There is no better or worse, but a count will be taken of preferences for each program. Program 2 and 3 are not compared against each other as the objective of the measure is to compare programs 2 and 3 against the current default program (program 1). |
Countries
United States
Outcome results
None listed