A Comparison of Hearing Aid Noise Programs on Speech Intelligibility

Not Applicable

• Conditions: Hearing Loss, Bilateral or Unilateral

• Registration Number: NCT06957730
• Lead Sponsor: Sonova AG

Brief Summary

Hearing impaired participants will be fit with study devices which will have three different hearing aid programs. Speech intelligibility will be measured using validated tests for each of the three hearing aid programs. The order of the hearing aid programs will be randomized across participants and each participant will be blinded as to the programs being tested.

Detailed Description

Program 1 is the current default in the commercially available devices. Programs 2 and 3 are being tested against the current default.

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2025-04-22
• Study First Submitted: 2025-04-22
• Status Verified: 2025-05
• Study First Submitted QC: 2025-05-01
• Last Update Submitted: 2025-05-01
• Study First Posted: 2025-05-04
• Last Update Posted: 2025-05-04
• Primary Completion: 2025-05-10
• Study Completion: 2025-05-10

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: ENROLLING_BY_INVITATION
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 17

Inclusion Criteria

• Bilateral moderate to severe hearing loss (N3-N4)
• Experienced hearing aid user
• Fluent in English
• Cognitively able to complete complex listening tasks

Exclusion Criteria

• Unilateral hearing loss
• New hearing aid user
• Unable or unwilling to complete complex listening tasks

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: SINGLE_GROUP

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
AZBio Speech in noise testing	Day 1 of 1 day study	A list of 20 sentences is presented from a speaker located in front of the participant. At the same time, background noise is presented from the same speaker at various SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio) levels. That is, speech may be presented 5 dB lower/softer than the noise up to 5 dB higher/louder than the noise. The number of words correct is counted and a percentage from the total number of words presented is calculated. A higher percentage is better and indicates better speech intelligibility. This test will be conducted for all three hearing aid program settings.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Subjective ratings of sound quality	Day 1 of 1 day study	Participants will be asked to choose between two of the hearing aid programs using an A/B comparison, on the following dimensions: clarity, speech naturalness, speech volume, noise intrusion, listening effort, overall sound quality, and preference. Participants will compare program setting 1 to program setting 2 and choose their preference for each above mentioned dimension. Additionally, participants will compare program setting 1 to program setting 3 and choose preference for each dimension. There is no better or worse, but a count will be taken of preferences for each program. Program 2 and 3 are not compared against each other as the objective of the measure is to compare programs 2 and 3 against the current default program (program 1).

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Phonak Audiology Research Center; 🇺🇸 Aurora, Illinois, United States