Clinical and Field Studies of Hearing Aid Performance

Work in this area has focused on laboratory and field evaluation of real-world benefits of hearing aid algorithms and features, such as directional microphones, noise reduction, and frequency lowering. We evaluate the efficacy of new types of hearing devices such as fixed-format hearing aids, “personal sound amplifiers”, and remote microphone hearing aids. We are developing and evaluating new methods to assess the effects of hearing aids on spatial hearing ability. Work has also focused on the effects of aging on hearing aid benefit and acceptance of one versus two hearing aids. The Audiology and Speech Pathology Center at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center is one of the leading research sites worldwide for the evaluation of real-world performance for hearing prosthetics.