A clinical evaluation of monaural and binaural hearing aids.

Abstract

Introduction At the Hearing and Speech Center of New York University-Bellevue Medical Center, a clinical evaluation of monaural and hearing aids has been conducted. Although much has been reported in the area of vs. monaural hearing, the majority of previous investigators were concerned with either summation of loudness or summation at threshold. The development of miniature amplifiers which can easily be worn on the head, particularly the more recently developed binaural hearing aid glasses, has stimulated a new interest in the advantages of hearing. Subjects and Procedure Because of the many variables found in the nature of perceptive deafness (e. g., discrimination, recruitment, and tolerance), this investigation has been restricted to subjects with clinical otosclerosis; the hearing of 10 subjects has been investigated. These subjects produce audiograms which are consistent with the medical diagnosis and demonstrate no evidence of a discrimination problem. In effect, these