Journal Reviews
The ‘My Hearing Explained’ tool: audiologist and client perceptions
The study notes that the pure tone audiogram has been the primary clinical and counselling tool used by clinicians to assess and describe hearing thresholds to individuals and families since 1922. The Ida Institutes, ‘My Hearing Explained’ tool has become...
How much does FESS improve the sense of smell?
We are all familiar with patients who undergo a seemingly successful FESS but, in spite of this, have persistent smell dysfunction postoperatively. This study compares a surgical group with a control group, measuring olfactory function pre and postoperatively using Sniffin...
Cochlear implants and speech perception
Cochlear implants can be an effective treatment for specific hearing losses. They may often be the only way to restore hearing for profoundly deaf people. Therefore, it is very important to understand all processes that may influence effective fitting of...
The power of (younger versus older) lips
The Directional into Velocity of Articulators (DIVA) model theorises that we require both auditory and sensory feedback - from our articulators - in order to ensure we are able to produce precise and powerful articulatory movements. This study aimed to...
The paediatric dilemma of one ear in and one ear out of NICE criteria
The auditory implant team in Manchester have implanted a cohort of children where audiological thresholds meet the NICE guidance for cochlear implantation (CI) in one ear only, and the other falls into moderate, severe or sloping loss. These children are...
Virtual human speaker
The aim of the discussed study was to develop and evaluate a 3D virtual speaker that could use pre-recorded audio-material and possibly be used for audio-visual speech testing in the future. The authors developed the terminal-analogue method that allows to...
Speech perception in the ageing population
Speech perception can present a challenge as we grow older. One of the factors responsible is, of course, hearing loss. Now research indicates that other non-auditory factors like cognitive decline may also contribute to difficulties in understanding speech. The authors...
Directional microphones and speech
This study aimed to research how speech recognition, listening effort and localisation depends on hearing aids’ microphone configuration in people with moderate to severe hearing losses. Eighteen participants with sensorineural, symmetrical, moderate to severe hearing loss were tested. Participants were...
British English speech test for occupational hearing assessment
It is very important to properly assess occupational fitness for several occupations such as police officer, military personnel or fire fighter. The aim of this study was to develop a British English speech in noise (SiN) test as a tool...
How the world sees facial palsy patients
This paper from Australia gives an insightful perspective on the impact of facial paralysis on patients, and may explain the well-documented poor quality of life scores in this patient group, particularly those ‘successfully reconstructed’ with surgery. It explores how the...
Differences in timbral cues’ perception between teenagers with cochlear implants and those with normal hearing
The authors aimed to assess timbral cues’ perception of teenagers with cochlear implants and compare it to the respective perception of normally hearing teenagers. Thirty-four teenagers were included in the study, nine Korean adolescents with cochlear implants and 25 adolescents...
Frequency Compression – is there a benefit?
The goal of this study was to investigate whether frequency compression (FC) hearing aids provide more benefit than conventional hearing aids. Twelve experienced hearing aid users 65-84 years of age with moderate to severe high frequency hearing loss wore the...
