Self-reports about tinnitus and about cochlear implants.
OBJECTIVE
Analyze literature on self-report outcomes in two areas of audiological rehabilitation: 1) tinnitus and 2) cochlear implant hearing aids.


METHODS
1) Tinnitus: survey of features in the development of self-report approaches and of formal scales used in assessment of tinnitus disability and handicaps. 2) Cochlear implants: summary of the literature using self-report approaches to cochlear implant experience that indicates points of theoretical significance.


RESULTS
1) Major features of tinnitus are: a) disabilities such as interference with and distortion of normal auditory perception; b) handicaps such as emotional distress, interference with sleep, and with personal and social life. Nonauditory factors-chronic depression, high self-focused attention-mediate the degree of experienced tinnitus handicap. 2) People with prelingual loss of hearing report that a cochlear implant primarily enables improved detection and discrimination of environmental sound; those with postlingual loss find that an implant in addition provides improved speech recognition.


CONCLUSIONS
1) Coping with tinnitus is influenced by the personal resources that can be brought to bear on the experience, highlighting a general point that any rehabilitation outcome is not only a matter of acoustical solutions. By the same token, tinnitus can be easier to cope with if its "psychoacoustic presence" can be diminished by some form of masking. 2) Cochlear implants fitted in childhood that do not provide meaningful input signals in real-world settings may be rejected in adolescence. 3) "Hearing," as a capacity, does not have a fixed worth. Different circumstances mean it will be taken as desirable or as delivering torment (extreme tinnitus, e.g.). Its value will also vary depending on the extent of a person's access to spoken language (aiding in very early childhood, e.g.).
Noble
W
W
School of Psychology, University of New England, Armidale, Australia.
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D019929:Cochlear Implantation; D003054:Cochlear Implants / Q000523:psychology; D006310:Hearing Aids; D006311:Hearing Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D012647:Self-Assessment; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014012:Tinnitus / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation