No abstract

Brainstem auditory-evoked response (BER) measurements were obtained on adult volunteer subjects who were hearing aid users. The BER's were elicited with click stimulation in several conditions: (1) unaided via earphones, (2) unaided via speaker, and (3) aided via speaker. In the aided condition, subjects adjusted their own hearing aids to their usual comfortable listening level. Aided and unaided audiometric thresholds were also obtained on each subject using pure tones, narrow-band noise, and speech under phones, and using noise and speech in a sound field. Hearing aids were analyzed for frequency response and distortion with a series of inputs and also at user level. Comparisons were made between aided and unaided audiological and BER data. Results indicate that aided BER measurement compared favorably with aided audiological data on cooperative adults and may therefore become useful when applied to hearing aid evaluation procedures for infants and children.