Therese C. Walden, Au.D. and Brian E. Walden, Ph.D
Clinical standards hold that patients with aidable hearing in both ears should be fit with bilateral amplification. Recent research conducted at the Army Audiology and Speech Center (AASC) suggests, however, that some patients may not always perform better with two hearing aids in background noise. This seems to be especially true for older patients. A concurrent line of research at the AASC is studying binaural hearing aid fittings in which directional microphone processing is provided to one ear and omnidirectional microphone processing to the other ear. Such “asymmetric” fittings seem to offer certain advantages over both manually-switchable and automatic omnidirectional/directional hearing aids. In addition to the research findings, this presentation will discuss the clinical implications of both lines of research, including clinical protocols for assessing the risks and opportunities provided by binaural amplification.