Dr. Therese Walden, DAC
This study compared the real-ear response provided by custom-fit hearing aids to the closest matching fixed-format disposable hearing aids (DHA) in patients with precipitous high-frequency hearing loss. Laboratory and field measures of aided performance were obtained to compare patient performance with the custom-fit and fixed-format hearing aids. In addition, coupler versus real-ear response differences were compared for the two hearing aid types. Results revealed that relatively close approximations to the real-aided responses of the custom-fit instruments were possible for most subjects using only seven fixed acoustical formats. The differences that existed in the aided responses between the two instrument types did not result in significant differences for aided speech recognition, nor for field ratings of aided performance, although patient satisfaction was rated lower for the DHA. Additionally, the real-ear to coupler difference was greater for the disposable hearing aid, presumably due to its deeper insertion into the ear canal.