Acclimatization to hearing aids: relationship between self assessment of hearing handicap and speech perception

Abstract

The goal of hearing aid prescription and adaptation is to provide greater audibility, better speech intelligibility and to reduce hearing handicap. Therefore it is important to assess how the hearing impairment is affecting his communicative abilities and his daily life socially and emotionally. The goal of the present study was to describe and analyze how measurements of self assessment of hearing handicap and speech perception change throughout the initial steps of hearing aid adaptation. Twelve adults, with sensorineural hearing loss moderate or severe, between 20 and 70 years old participated in the study. The Hearing Handicap Inventory for Adults (Ventry & Weinstein, 1982) was used to measure handicap. To measure speech perception Index of speech recognition was used with phoneme counting and Speech tracking (De Fillipo & Scott, 1978). A significant improvement was found in all the procedures applied after the use of amplification for six weeks. However, improvement in the hearing handicap scores were not always compatible with better scores in the speech perception evaluation.