Influence of aided audibility on speech recognition performance with frequency composition for children and adults.
Marc A Brennan, Jenna M Browning, Meredith Spratford and 2 others
PMID 33719807WHAT IT FOUND
Frequency composition did not improve speech recognition in noise for children or adults overall.
Only children with very low aided audibility showed a specific benefit for single words, but this did not extend to sentences or adults.
Key findings
01The overall effect of frequency composition on speech recognition was not statistically significant.
02Children with lower aided speech intelligibility showed a significant correlation between better word recognition and frequency composition use.
03The benefit observed in children for single words did not generalize to sentence recognition or to adult participants.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study used a hearing-aid simulator rather than actual hearing aids, which may not fully replicate real-world listening conditions. The sample size was small (38 participants), limiting the power to detect subtle effects or generalize findings. Results were mixed, with significant benefits only seen in a specific subgroup (children with low audibility) for one stimulus type (words), requiring cautious interpretation. One participant was excluded due to a data collection error, reducing the final analyzed sample.
Declared interests
The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health. The authors declared no other conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the significant correlation in children with low audibility as evidence that frequency composition is an effective treatment for hearing loss in general. The primary outcome for the whole group was null, and the benefit did not extend to sentence recognition or adults.