Development of a protocol for fitting open fit personal FM systems
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Author/Creator ORCID
Date
2014-07-08
Type of Work
Department
Towson University. Department of Audiology, Speech-Language Pathology and Deaf Studies
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Citation of Original Publication
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Copyright protected, all rights reserved.
There are no restrictions on access to this document. An internet release form signed by the author to display this document online is on file with Towson University Special Collections and Archives.
There are no restrictions on access to this document. An internet release form signed by the author to display this document online is on file with Towson University Special Collections and Archives.
Subjects
Abstract
The aim of this study was to develop a protocol that can be used for audiological purposes in a clinical setting in order to measure the benefits of open fit personal frequency modulated (FM) systems. A total of 17 normal hearing and typically developing children (six females and 11 males), ages 8 to 17 years old, underwent real ear measurements (REMs), the Hearing in Noise Test (HINT), and several questionnaires such as the Listening Inventory For Education-United Kingdom version (LIFE-UK), the LIFE-UK student version, and a follow-up questionnaire in order to evaluate their perceived benefits with the FM system. Each test or task was timed to evaluate if the proposed protocol was clinically feasible. Results indicated that the established protocol should be considered when fitting open fit personal FM systems in the clinical setting. The time restrictions of the clinical setting were appropriately met with this protocol. Output verification measurements confirmed that the FM system was functioning appropriately for each participant. Improvements in speech perception were observed in competing noise with use of the FM system; therefore, speech-in-noise testing was considered an appropriate measure for evaluating the potential benefits of an FM system. Even though the responses from the follow-up questionnaires were not statistically significant, the results indicated that participants perceived benefits in using the FM under noisy conditions. The results from this pilot study indicated that future studies should include a larger sample size in order to assist in confirmation of these results.