Introducing real-life listening features into the clinical test environment: Part II: Measuring the hearing performance and evaluating the listening effort of individuals with a hearing implant.

OBJECTIVES: The controlled clinical test environment is very different from real-life listening situations, where the presence of additional speakers and variations in background noise signals can affect listening performances. The primary objective of this study is to reduce the gap between clinical results and real-life performances that are reported for many hearing implant users.

METHODS: Similar to Part I of this study, hearing performance and sound perception are evaluated using the following tests: (i) the Roving Level Test, (ii) the Just Understanding Speech Test, (iii) the Performance Perceptual Test, (iv) the Visual Analogue Scale to evaluate the perceived listening effort required for a range of background noise levels, and (v) the Hearing Implant Sound Quality questionnaire. All subjects recruited for this study used MED-EL hearing implant systems.

RESULTS: Results show that, similar to normal hearing listeners, hearing implant users tend to accurately estimate their hearing abilities, and both listening effort and speech recognition thresholds tend to increase with increasing noise.

DISCUSSION: The proposed test battery for evaluating speech understanding and listening effort were suitable for use in this study as all of the implant users were able to complete the tests. This test battery can be used to provide audiologists with further information relating to real-life listening performances.

CONCLUSION: Evaluating the self-estimated and verified performance measurements of hearing implant users in real-life listening situations are essential for providing information regarding the discrepancies observed between the objective and subjective reports of hearing difficulties.