The effect of pre-fitting counselling on the outcome of fittings of NHS behind-the-ear hearing aids to adult first-time users was investigated. Questionnaires and diaries were sent both before and after fitting to 48 subjects who were given pre-fitting counselling and 47 control subjects, all of whom were fitted with standard NHS hearing aids in Southampton or Bath between September 1989 and July 1991. The test and control groups had similar distributions of age, sex and hearing loss. Analysis of the data showed that the counselling had no significant effect on levels of satisfaction, aid usage or benefit; these outcome measures also showed no significant correlation with any of the personal characteristics or attitude factors which were studied.

Mondini dysplasia is a congenital malformation of the inner ear. To date, five individuals with this malformation have received cochlear implants at the South of England Cochlear Implant Centre. The aim of this study was to review the audiological findings of these individuals after implantation. The soundfield thresholds after implantation are in the region of 30-40 dB (A). The results of suprathreshold speech recognition tasks show substantial variability in performance but this is no greater than that obtained from implant users with no malformation. All individuals were able to detect and recognize a variety of environmental sounds that would previously have been inaudible. These findings, along with the reported improvement in quality of life, mean that Mondini dysplasia is not a contra-indication for multichannel cochlear implantation. This information will be useful to other centres when considering implantation in similar patients.

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