The investigation explored effects of stimulus level on frequency discrimination of long- and short-duration pure tones by five subjects with normal hearing and seven with sensorineural hearing impairments. The performance of hearing impaired subjects was poorer than normal for 300-ms tones but not for 5-ms tones. (Author/DB)

Binaural loudness summation was measured using three different paradigms with 10 normally hearing and 20 bilaterally symmetrical high-frequency sensorineural hearing loss subjects. Binaural summation increased with presentation level using the loudness matching procedure, with values in the 6-10 dB range. Summation decreased with level using the…

Forward-masked psychophysical tuning curves were obtained at multiple probe levels from 26 normal-hearing listeners and 24 ears of 21 hearing-impaired listeners with cochlear hearing loss. Results indicated that some cochlear hearing losses influence the sharp tuning capabilities usually associated with outer hair cell function. (Author/JDD)

Three hearing aid manufacturers provided custom full-shell in-the-ear hearing aids designed for maximum acoustic gain for each of three hearing-impaired adults. Full-on coupler gain curves were similar across all nine hearing aids, with individual differences producing substantial variance in insertion gain across hearing aids. (Author/DB)

The paper describes the unexpected finding of evoked otoacoustic emissions from one ear of a subject with severe-to-profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. It is suggested that the subject may have a group of surviving outer hair cells in some regions of the left cochlea with corresponding inner hair cell or neural damage. (Author/DB)

The application of the Articulation Index (AI) model to the fitting of linear amplification was evaluated for 12 subjects with sensorineural hearing loss. For all subjects, the relationship between percent-correct scores on a nonsense syllable test and AIs was monotonic, indicating that AI was effective for comparing conditions typical of those…

The study employed measures of frequency resolution obtained from individual subjects (two normal and three with sensorineural hearing loss) to predict each subject's vowel recognition performance. A relation between impairments of frequency resolution and vowel recognition was found. The described model may be useful in predicting vowel…

Averaged cortically evoked potentials to frequency-modulated tones were obtained from 12 children with specific language impairment (SLI) and 12 controls. Responses from SLI children were not significantly different from those of normal language learners, indicating no difference between groups with respect to neural systems involved with…

This study examined the attenuation characteristics of 5 Frequency Modulation system sound delivery options for 25 adults and children (ages 5-13). Degree of ear canal occlusion was a major factor in degree of attenuation. For children with unilateral hearing impairments, the most acoustically appropriate option was the tube-fitting. (Author/JDD)

Sensitivity and specificity of static acoustic admittance (SAA) and tympanometric width (TW) were assessed for 116 pediatric patients. A statistically significant change in SAA was observed in immediate repeat measures. No significant change across the two sequential measures was observed for TW, peak pressure, or the estimate of ear canal volume.…

This study investigated ratings of amplified speech quality characterized by peak clipping, a common form of distortion in hearing aids, with eight college students having moderate/severe hearing losses. Both clipping level and interaction of the frequency-response shaping with clipping level significantly affected perceived speech quality. A…

Identification of place of articulation in synthesized syllables was examined with eight normal hearing adults listening in quiet or noise and three adults with high-frequency sensorineural hearing loss. Stimuli with an appropriate second formant (F2) transition were compared with stimuli in which F2 was constant. (Author/DB)

The study evaluated use of the Modified Power Law to predict permanent threshold shift (PTS) resulting from noise exposure in eight children with severe sensorineural hearing loss attributed to overamplification by hearing aids. The PTS tended to be flat across frequency with its course similar to PTS in persons with normal hearing exposed to…

Measures of both temporal and spectral parameters were computed to determine the extent of perseveratory coarticulation in the vowel-consonant syllables produced by 7- and 10-year-old children (n=9). Profoundly hearing-impaired speakers exhibited measurable but smaller effects of perseveratory coarticulation relative to the normally hearing…

Variability of aided sound field thresholds (ASFTs) was examined in 30 hearing-impaired children comprising 2 age groups (5-9 and 10-14 years). Findings showed that 2 ASFTs would have to differ by more than 10 decibels across signal test frequencies to attain statistical significance. (Author/DB)