A comparison of three hearing aid evaluation procedures for young children
D. M. Schwartz and V. D. Larson
The evaluation of hearing aid performance with young, nonverbal children
traditionally consists of a comparison between aided and unaided
thresholds. Alternative evaluation procedures include those that provide an
estimate of the speech spectrum area that is potentially audible to the
child with amplification. This study compared the hearing aid performance
results for ten hearing impaired children evaluated with a sound field
procedure and two speech spectrum methods. Results obtained for three
hearing aids demonstrated no differences in hearing aid recommendation
between procedures for children with only mild-moderate hearing loss. For
children with severe to profound losses, however, the sound-field audiogram
was found to overestimate what is potentially audible to the child.
