Author: Christa Nuber

Improvement in Speech Intelligibility and Subjective Benefit with Binaural Beamformer Technology

New adaptive behavior of Phonak binaural beamformer StereoZoom provides significant benefit in speech intelligibility and subjective rating as compared to static or monaural beamformers. This benefit is most evident in difficult listening environments such as when noise is predominantly present from the sides.

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Beyond Connectivity

ReSound LiNX offers direct connectivity to the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. While this increases the usability and functionality of the hearing instruments, it goes further by offering a full range of features currently available from ReSound.

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Clinical Results with a New Wireless Binaural Directional Hearing System

At two independent research sites, sentence recognition in surrounding background noise was found to be significantly superior for individuals with mild-to-moderate hearing loss, when aided with a new binaural beamforming technology, compared to individuals with normal hearing. The performance advantage for the hearing-impaired groups was 2-3 dB SNR.

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Clinical Trial on the Effectiveness of Widex Zen Therapy for Tinnitus

The results from this clinical study strongly support the use of Widex Zen Therapy in tinnitus patient management. This individualized comprehensive approach combining counseling (instructional and adjustment-based cognitive behavioral intervention), amplification, fractal tones and/or noise, and relaxation strategies was highly effective in reducing tinnitus handicap in a short period of time, with improvements apparent through at least the 6-month duration of this investigation.

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Right Product; Right Message: A Cognitive-Behavioral Approach to Interacting with Patients

This article is a micro-level analysis of how hearing care professionals can help patients deconstruct their hearing loss and reprogram “wrong messages.” To the extent that a person with hearing loss has internalized negative social norms, a “traditional” audiology or hearing care visit is likely to trigger shame-based self-evaluative cognitions. For example, “I didn’t study properly for the hearing test, therefore I’m unworthy.”

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Know Your Marketing; Know Your ROI

Effective marketing requires establishing benchmarks for successful efforts, collecting the data generated by your marketing tactics, and measuring their success or lack thereof through ROI analysis. Ultimately, ROI analysis provides you with the knowledge and ability to adjust your marketing plan to capture beneficial trends or eliminate wasteful spending.

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Oticon Hearing Foundation Supports 2014 Project Amazon

Two audiologists from Illinois State University—Lindsay Bondurant, PhD and second-year AuD student Ellen Avoletta—have been selected to travel to the Oticon Clinic in Parintins, Brazil as part of Project Amazon. The Oticon Hearing Foundation will again underwrite the costs for the humanitarian mission that provides audiology care and hearing solutions to children and adults from some of Brazil’s most impoverished communities.

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Software for Google Glass Provides Captions for Hard-of-Hearing Users

A team of researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology has created speech-to-text software for Google Glass that helps hard-of-hearing users with everyday conversations. According to the research team that designed the Captioning on Glass software system, a hard-of-hearing person wears Glass while a second person speaks directly into a smartphone. The speech is converted to text, sent to Glass and displayed on its heads-up display.

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Advanced Hearing Aids Make Speech Clearer, Music Difficult

The type of sound processing that modern hearings aids provide to make speech more understandable may also make music enjoyment more difficult, according to a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder. The findings, suggest that less sophisticated hearing aids might actually be more compatible with listening to music, especially recorded music that has been processed.

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