Hearing Aid Characteristics and Fitting Techniques for Improving Speech Intelligibility in Noise

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Abstract
Many studies of listening efficiency against competing noise have been made. Competing speech audiometry has shown that conductive losses react similar to normal hearing listeners while perceptive losses have much more difficulty in discriminating. The relationship between discrimination and signal-to-competing noise ratio depends to a certain extent on the composition of the noise test signal. In this paper the competing noise signal was white noise shaped as cocktail party noise. This arrangement is made to duplicate as closely as possible the situation the listener has to face when he is trying to pick up a voice among many other competing voices spoken simultaneously. The paper describes the influence that various fitting techniques and various instruments have, especially on mild perceptive losses, under such listening conditions. The following fitting types and instrument categories are discussed: Open canal fittings, High tone instruments, Directional instruments, Compression (AGO instruments.

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