No description available.

Nondisabled people frequently feel uncomfortable with or avoid physically disabled people. One purpose of the study was to assess people's responses to a confederate who used a hearing aid. A second purpose was to assess responses to the confederate when he wore a more a more effective and much more conspicuous hearing device. The third purpose was to see if volunteering an explanation of the hearing device would result in a less negative response than that found without an explanation. The participants were 80 male undergraduates. They interacted with the confederate, a male undergraduate whose hearing was normal, in an interview situation. There were no differences among the hearing impaired conditions, or between the hearing impaired conditions and a nondisabled control condition, on any of these variables: distance from the confederate, delay before initiating conversation when left alone with the confederate, length of the interview, and impression ratings of the confederate. These results suggest that people do not avoid or feel uncomfortable with a person who uses a hearing aid or a larger hearing device. Because participants did not respond negatively to the large hearing device when no explanation was offered, the possible benefits of voluntarily explaining the device could not be assessed.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1950. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaf [34]).

Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.) PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / Perception of sound laterality (left-right angle) is mediated by both interaural time differences (ITD) and interaural level differences (ILD). Previous localization studies in anechoic settings consistently show that low-frequency ITDs dominate perception of source laterality. However, reverberant energy differentially degrades ITDs and ILDs; the effects of room reflections on the perceptual weight given to ITDs and ILDs are not well understood. Here, we tested the hypothesis that high-frequency envelope ITD cues are important for spatial judgments in reverberant rooms by measuring the perceived laterality of high-pass, low-pass and broadband sounds. Results show that when ILD cues and ITD envelope cues are both available, reverberant energy has the smallest effect on localization of high-pass stimuli. When ILD cues are set to zero, localization of high-pass stimuli with strong envelopes (i.e. click trains and speech tokens) is also minimally affected by reverberant energy; however, as envelope modulation is reduced, subjects show increasing localization bias, responding towards the center. Moreover, for stimuli with strong envelopes, subjects with better modulation detection sensitivity are affected less by the addition of reverberant energy. These results suggest that, in contrast to in anechoic space, high-frequency envelope ITD cues influence localization in reverberant settings. / 2031-01-01

No description available.

Introduction: Despite the advantages of using a hearing aid (HA), only 1 out of 5 individuals who could benefit from a (HA) actually use one (World Health Organization, 2012). If an individual does not use a HA then it may impact on their quality of life, as well as others around them (Chia et al., 2007). Therefore it is important to understand why individuals do not use HAs after obtaining them. To date, there has been no study that investigates the reasons for HA disuse in the New Zealand population. Methods: Two groups of adults with hearing impairment were recruited: HA users (N = 35) and HA disusers (N = 35). Six self-report questionnaires, three audiometric tests and two other body function measures were compared between the groups. Results: Several variables differentiated HA users from disusers, these significant variables were: cognition, understanding speech in noise, acceptance of noise, age at testing, education, hearing assistance technology (HAT) use, HA satisfaction, self-efficacy, accepted need, application for HA subsidy, HA outcomes, stages-of-change, perceived environmental influence, follow-up support and hearing related activity limitations/participation restrictions (AL/PR). Discussion: The clinical value of identifying factors related to HA disuse is so clinicians can identify “red flags” for disuse before the client stops using their HAs. By identifying these red flags, rehabilitation can be tailored around the clients’ needs; before the negative consequences of an untreated hearing impairment is felt.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karol. inst., 2004. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Magister Artium (Social Work) - MA(SW) / Overwhelming evidence suggests that 90% of children with a hearing loss are born to hearing parents. Research indicates that often these hearing parents are ill-informed about the cause and type of hearing loss their child has, leading the hearing parents to feelings of grief and disempowerment. Many hearing parents at the time of the diagnosis experience emotional turmoil as the diagnosis is often unexpected, resulting in a plethora of questions asked. The research approach for the study was qualitative in nature as it set out to explore and describe the experiences of hearing parents of their child’s hearing loss. A phenomenological strategy of design was employed to capture the lived experience from the hearing parents. Data was collected by means of unstructured individual in-depth interviews with 11 hearing parents. Volunteer and snowball sampling were implemented so as to access hearing parents whose children had been diagnosed with hearing loss. Data was analysed according to Creswell (2007) and Klenke (2008) and the trustworthiness of the qualitative study was evaluated against the criteria that Guba described in Krefting (1991). Ethical considerations, such as voluntary participation, informed consent, confidentiality, anonymity, no harm done and debriefing, were adhered to. After the conclusion of the research analysis, the findings of the research were discussed and recommendations were made. The findings of the recommendations spoke to the better understanding of the emotions and challenges of hearing parents as well as putting forward suggestions for supportive coping mechanisms to be put in place to support hearing parents whose children have been diagnosed with a hearing loss.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Philosophy

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01