Effect of Hearing Aid Directionality and Remote Microphone on Speech Intelligibility in Complex Listening Situations.

Only 15 listeners completed the main study, and 5 of 20 invited listeners were excluded after screening. The participants were adults aged 63 to 83 years with severe hearing loss and more than 9 years of hearing aid experience, so results may not apply to children or people with less hearing aid experience. The tests were done in a sound-treated room with loudspeakers and recorded restaurant noise, not in a real classroom or family gathering. The study did not report the condition without remote microphone, so it cannot show how much the remote microphone itself helped. The authors could not separate the effect of remote microphone acclimatization from additional practice on the tasks because there was no test-retest without acclimatization. Some secondary task results may have reached a ceiling, which can hide visit effects. The article text does not give the percentage intelligibility results for the main comparisons, so the size of benefit cannot be judged directly.

The named funder was Sonova AG, Stäfa, Switzerland.

Do not conclude that directional hearing aid microphones with a remote microphone will improve everyday listening for all patients with hearing loss. This was a small laboratory study in 15 experienced hearing aid users, and the condition without remote microphone was not reported.