The Benefit of Binaural Amplification for the Speech Intelligibility - The Influence of the Degree of the Hearing Loss
Authors:
R. Havlík
Authors‘ workplace:
AUDIO-Fon centr s. r. o., Brno
přednosta doc. MUDr. M. Lejska, CSc.
Published in:
Otorinolaryngol Foniatr, 58, 2009, No. 4, pp. 204-210.
Category:
Original Article
Overview
The paper analyzes the quantitative benefit of binaural amplification in comparison to monaural one for the speech intelligibility on the background noise in precisely defined SNR (signal-to-noise ratios). 189 hearing impaired persons who decided to use a hearing aid on both ears have been examined. They were divided into 3 groups according to the degree of their hearing loss (40-49 dB HL, 50-59 dB HL, 60-69 dB HL). The author evaluated the benefit within each group and the mutual comparisons. The results indicate that the speech intelligibility improvement occurs especially in the negative values of SNR and the global benefit of the second hearing instrument is directly related to the severity of the hearing loss.
Key words:
binaural amplification, monaural amplification, SNR, hearing loss, acoustic signal, audimetric curve.
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Labels
Audiology Paediatric ENT ENT (Otorhinolaryngology)Article was published in
Otorhinolaryngology and Phoniatrics
2009 Issue 4
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