Wayne's World

A Case for Mid-frequency Amplification (Continued) Should mid-frequencies be given more than a cursory consideration when it comes to fitting hearing aids? Last week’s post reviewed some acoustic characteristics of speech and their significance in speech perception. These included long-known information related to speech spectra; the relationship between speech power, frequency, and intelligibility; critical bands; crossover frequency; and formants as

Most individuals with hearing loss are affected mostly in the high frequencies. And, because consonants–those phonemes (distinctive speech sounds) that are believed to enable humans to differentiate one word from another–are high-frequency sounds, hearing aid fitting formulas universally call for high-frequency amplification. This continues to be a take-off of the old “audiogram fitting” approach (although with less gain, but still tending to

Many of us in the discipline of hearing speak frequently about the adverse effect of noise on hearing – often assuming that farm workers are very susceptible to hearing loss because of the noise levels of their machinery. But, I wonder. In fact, I have felt for years that farm workers currently may have no greater hearing loss than the general

Ear Canal Dimensional Measurement Summary of Previous Five Posts   The previous five posts on the ear canal contained detailed published measurements and methods for making those measurements. This post takes those data and provides a summary illustration that shows the complete ear canal and highlights the locations of those dimensional measurements (Figure 1). The data highlighted in black text is a summary of

Hearing Through the Eyes – This Does Sound Weird You’ve Got to be Kidding, Right? Can a person actually hear through their eyes? Color me among those shaking their head, seriously questioning if I had read, and heard, this correctly. But, such was suggested by the title of a presentation I attended at the American Auditory Society meeting in Scottsdale,

Hearing Aid Coupling From an historical point of view, the history of coupling a hearing aid processor to deliver sound to the ear might be ordered as follows: (1) stock ear coupling, (2) custom earmolds, (3) imaging, and (4) same-session coupling. The purpose of an earmold/earpiece is to direct sound to the tympanic membrane without feedback; it should fit the

Hearing Aid Evolution – A Ride Through History This post will review implantable hearing devices in this hearing aid evolution ride through history. In what has now become a six-part series, the first week focused on factors that drive hearing aid development, and then highlighted some of the major developments (primarily hardware) that shaped the changes to hearing aid design. The second

Hearing Aid Evolution: Part IV Technology and Techniques – A Hurried Ride Through History An overview of approaches that have been used to select and fit hearing aids is the focus of this week’s post on this “ride through history” of the evolution of hearing aid technology and techniques. As with many other posts, detailed procedures are best left to

Hearing Aid Evolution – A Ride Through History Last week’s post was the second of what has now become a five-part series on the “Evolution of Hearing Aid Technology and Techniques – A Ride Through History.” The first week focused on factors that drive hearing aid development, and then highlighted some of the major developments (primarily hardware) that shaped the changes

Hearing Aid Evolution: Technology and Techniques – Part II Last week’s post was the first part of a three-part series on the “Evolution of Hearing Aid Technology and Techniques – A Ride Through History.” Last week focused first on factors that drive hearing aid development and then highlighted some of the major developments (primarily hardware) that shaped the changes to hearing