title: Speech recognition measures with noise suppression hearing aids using a single-subject experimental design.
abstract: Research aimed at quantifying the benefits a hearing aid user might expect from noise suppression hearing aids purported to improve hearing in the presence of background noise have yielded widely varying results. We suggest this may in part be due to the inappropriate use of experimental approaches based on group design and inferential statistical analysis. Included in this paper is our rationale for employing a single-subject experimental design to investigate subject performance with two commercially available hearing-aid noise suppression systems. Preliminary results with two subjects indicate that both the Siemens Automatic Signal Processing (ASP) and Zeta Noise Blocker (ZNB) noise suppression systems markedly improve listener scores on the low predictability sentence material of the SPIN Test. We conclude these two noise suppression systems may improve performance as the listening situation becomes contextually more difficult, and that single-subject experimental designs could be a valuable addition to applied behavioral research with hearing aids.
authors.affiliation: Siegel Institute, Michael Reese Hospital.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Stein
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: McGee
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lewis
mesh_terms: D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005260:Female; D006310:Hearing Aids; D006312:Hearing Loss, Bilateral / Q000534:rehabilitation; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009622:Noise; D012107:Research Design; D013067:Speech Perception