Discovering the Unmet Needs of People With Difficulties Understanding Speech in Noise and a Normal or Near-Normal Audiogram.

Purpose A proportion of people with a normal audiogram or mild hearing loss (NA-MHL) experience greater-than-expected difficulty hearing speech in noise. This preliminary exploratory study employed a design thinking approach to better understand the clinical pathway and treatment options experienced by this population. Method Exploratory survey data were analyzed from 233 people with NA-MHL who had consulted a clinician and 47 clinicians.

Adults who report difficulty hearing speech in noise: an exploration of experiences, impacts and coping strategies.

Listening difficulties in noise are common, even in those with clinically normal hearing. There is a suggestion that subjective assessment of hearing difficulties may be more closely associated with listening effort and fatigue rather than objective measures of hearing and/or speech perception. The aim of this study was to better understand these perceptual deficits and experiences of this population.

Time to Listen: Most Regular Patrons of Music Venues Prefer Lower Volumes.

High sound levels are a feature of nightclubs and live music venues, and therefore pose a risk to patrons' hearing. As a result, these venues are often a focus area for hearing health promotion, and particular emphasis is placed on motivating patrons to take steps to reduce their noise exposure. In the current study, we approached this issue from a different angle.

Personal Listening Devices in Australia: Patterns of Use and Levels of Risk.

Personal listening devices (PLDs) have the potential to increase the risk of noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) for users. The present study aimed to investigate the nature and extent of the risk posed, by describing the user profile of a PLD population, identifying listening habits of that population, and examining whether PLD risk status is associated with hearing damage. A sample of 4,185 Australian PLD users completed an online survey about listening behaviors and hearing health.

Hearing protection devices: Use at work predicts use at play.

Use of hearing protection devices (HPDs) at work is widespread and well researched, but less is known about HPD use in high-noise leisure activities. We investigated HPD use of 8,144 Australians in leisure settings. An online survey asked questions about HPD use at work and leisure and examined whether age, gender, HPD use at work, and tinnitus predicted HPD use in leisure activities.

Developing Sound Skills for Reading: Teaching Phonological Awareness to Preschoolers With Hearing Loss.

This study evaluated the effectiveness of intervention for developing deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) preschoolers' phonological awareness (PA) skills. Thirty children (mean age 57 months) with aided, bilateral hearing loss (and who primarily communicated using spoken English) were recruited in the year prior to commencing formal schooling. The study used an experimental design with participants assigned to one of two intervention conditions-vocabulary instruction, or explicit PA instruction.

Providing earplugs to young adults at risk encourages protective behaviour in music venues.

For some young people, nightclubs and other music venues are a major source of noise exposure, arising from a combination of very high noise levels; relatively long attendance duration; and frequent, sustained participation over several years. Responsibility for hearing protection is largely left to individuals, many of whom choose not to wear earplugs. In order to encourage earplug use in these settings, a new approach is needed.

Changing beliefs about leisure noise: using health promotion models to investigate young people's engagement with, and attitudes towards, hearing health.

Objective: To investigate factors influencing young people's motivation to reduce their leisure noise exposure, and protect their hearing health.

Design: Questionnaires were conducted online to investigate young people's hearing health attitudes and behaviour. Items were developed using an integrated health promotion approach.

When expectation meets experience: parents' recollections of and experiences with a child diagnosed with hearing loss soon after birth.

Objective: To examine parents' recollections of and their experiences with bringing up a child diagnosed with hearing loss at a very young age.

Design: Based on the analysis of informal parent discussion groups, four open-ended questions were formulated to solicit information about parents' expectations following diagnosis, as well as experiences and challenges when raising a child with a hearing loss.

Study Sample: Forty parents of children, aged between three to five years, who were diagnosed with hearing loss before the age of three years.

Noise with attitude: influences on young people's decisions to protect their hearing.

Objective: To investigate young people's experiences and attitudes towards hearing health and their participation in noise reduction behaviours, to better understand how education and prevention messages may be better targeted.

Design: An online survey was used to investigate participants' own hearing health, their engagement with noise reduction behaviour, and their beliefs about hearing health and the risk posed by leisure activities.

Study Sample: Results are presented for 1000 Australian young adults (18-35 years).

Leisure noise exposure: participation trends, symptoms of hearing damage, and perception of risk.

Objective: Leisure activities that emit high noise levels have the potential to expose participants to excessive noise exposure, which can result in hearing damage. This study investigated young people's participation in high-noise leisure activities and the relationship between their leisure noise exposure, symptoms of hearing damage, and perception of risk.

Design: Participants completed an online survey relating to participation in selected high-noise leisure activities, symptoms of hearing damage, and beliefs about the risk posed by these activities.

Estimating young Australian adults' risk of hearing damage from selected leisure activities.

Objective: Several previous studies have attempted to estimate the risk of noise-induced hearing loss from loud leisure noise. Some of these studies may have overestimated the risk because they used noise estimates taken from the higher end of reported levels. The aim of the present study was to provide a realistic estimate of the number of young Australian adults who may be at risk of hearing damage and eventual hearing loss from leisure-noise exposure.

Music to whose ears? The effect of social norms on young people's risk perceptions of hearing damage resulting from their music listening behavior.

Professional and community concerns about the potentially dangerous noise levels for common leisure activities has led to increased interest on providing hearing health information to participants. However, noise reduction programmes aimed at leisure activities (such as music listening) face a unique difficulty. The noise source that is earmarked for reduction by hearing health professionals is often the same one that is viewed as pleasurable by participants.

The objective-subjective assessment of noise: young adults can estimate loudness of events and lifestyle noise.

Objective: The aim of the study was to establish whether individuals can subjectively estimate: (1) the loudness of events with respect to the objectively measured noise level; and (2) the overall loudness of their daily noise exposure level.

Design: Participants wore personal noise exposure meters for up to five days. During this time, participants kept diaries of daily events and estimated the loudness of these events and their overall noise exposure using 1-to-10 rating scales.

Medical practitioners' attitudes to hearing rehabilitation for older adults.

Objective: Medical practitioners have the potential to play a significant role in older adults' help seeking behaviour in relation to hearing rehabilitation. The current study aimed to look at attitudinal factors that influence practitioners' decisions to discuss hearing difficulties with older patients and refer them for hearing rehabilitation.

Design: A questionnaire based on constructs from the Health Belief Model was used to examine factors that may influence practitioners' referral decisions.

Hearing protection for clubbers is music to their ears.

Issue Addressed: while it is difficult to promote the use of hearing protectors in noisy workplaces and leisure settings, some nightclub attendees choose to wear earplugs when exposed to loud music. This qualitative study investigated the perceptions of clubbers about the advantages and disadvantages of earplug use in nightclubs. Such first-hand information could potentially be used to educate non-wearers about the features of different earplug types, the experience of wearing earplugs and their relative merits.

Evaluation of the NAL-NL1 and the DSL v.4.1 prescriptions for children: Paired-comparison intelligibility judgments and functional performance ratings.

This paper reports intelligibility judgments and real-life functional performance of 48 children in a double-blind, cross-over trial comparing the NAL-NL1 and the DSL v.4.1 prescriptions.