Effect of individual auditory training for hearing aid users

Abstract

　　The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of individual auditory training for hearing aid users. This study was performed in 139 patients (262 ears) who presented with sensorineural hearing disturbance and underwent training for adaptation to hearing aids and individual auditory training at our hospital for three months (auditory training group). As the control group, 89 patients (168 ears) who only underwent training for adaptation to hearing aids were included. The speech intelligibility score under the unaided condition was measured before and after the training in each group. Analysis using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test confirmed significant improvement of the speech intelligibility scores in both groups (p<0.001). However, there was no statistically significant improvement of the speech intelligibility score in the auditory training group as compared to the control group (Fisher's exact probability test, p=0.834). The results of the present investigation suggest that individual auditory training using the speech tracking method may not be particularly useful to improve the speech intelligibility score. Therefore, another analyzing method might be required to evaluate the utility of auditory training using speech tracking method.