Hearing Aids and Hearing Loss Resources
Fred Flintstone Video Hearing Loss Simulation (1 min). Clarity is lost with hearing loss.
Find out what people with hearing loss is experiencing with Starkey’s Hearing Loss Simulator.
- Choose a situation
- Select the hearing loss level you want to hear
- Click Play
- Set your computer volume to 50% for the best experience
The Journey of Sound to the Brain (2+ min)
Introduction to Real Ear Measurements and why they are important when you purchase new hearing aids. Approximately 30% of hearing professions provide this service. (9:45)
Hearing Loss
Hearing Loss Statistics (this website)
Hearing more clearly
- Use Assistive Listening Systems:
- Listen to the clean sound (this website)
- Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Standards (this website). You have civil rights and legal rights to hear in public and private places.
- Support, education, information, advocacy. Hearing Loss Association of America, HLAA (website)
- Catalogs and stores (webpage) that sell assistive listening devices, including phones, personal listening systems, and TV headphones.
Hearing tests
- Hearing Tests: audiologist or hearing instrument specialist, Review of 10 online hearing tests (webpage) and 2-page paper (pdf) test from Better Hearing Institute. Ida Institute: My hearing worksheet (1 page, pdf)
- Hearing Number (website)
Hearing loss research on comorbidities (risk factors. Correlations, not causations)
- The ACHIEVE study, dementia and hearing aid use (website)
- Lower fall prevalence (article, webpage)
Hearing Aid Industry Map v10 – Updated for 2023 (11 MB, pdf). Who really makes your hearing aids? Did you know there are OVER 40 brands of hearing aids made by ONLY FIVE global hearing aid manufacturers? And that’s only counting the primary brands! from Hearing Tracker
Hearing aids
- OTC hearing aids: What Do Consumers Need To Know? Manchaiah et al, (webpage) and HLAA Tips (1 page, pdf)
- Hearing Aid reviews: Consumer Reports Hearing Aid Buying Guide and Hearing Tracker
- Tinnitus resources, James Henry, PhD (webpage)
Buying Hearing Aids
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(2 pages). Wireless Connectivity (telecoils, Bluetooth), Hearing Aid Selection, Hearing Aid Verification and Validation Measures. HLAA Washington State.
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(2 pages) You don’t hear well and you’ve decided to do something about it. You have many unanswered questions: • Do you need a hearing aid? • Where do you …
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(2 pages) The first-time hearing aid user may wonder where to begin. This checklist guides you through getting hearing aids that match your needs and adjusting to wearing hearing aids. …
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(1 Page) Important steps as you shop for an OTC hearing aid, including a telecoil. By HLAA. Visit OTC Hearing aids (webpage) for more information
Hearing Aids and Cochlear Implants
Be an informed hearing aid user
- Open Letter (webpage) to Hard of Hearing Consumers and Patients. K. Cavitt, AuD. July 23, 2023
- NIDCD free publications on Hearing Aids, Cochlear Implants, with both English and Spanish versions. The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), conducts and supports research in the normal and disordered processes of hearing, balance, taste, smell, voice, speech, and language.
Choosing an Audiologist
- Article, Hearing Health for Older Adults: What Older Adults Need to Know About Hearing Loss. National Council on Aging (NCOA). 5/13/22. Whyman and Sterkens (webpage)
- How to Find a Good Audiologist (webpage). Hearing Tracker 2022. See section on “What if I need hearing aids?”
Audiology Professional Best Practices
- Practice Guidelines and Standards (webpage). American Academy of Audiology (AAA)
- Accreditation Standards (webpage). Academy of Doctors of Audiology (ADA)
- Certification (webpage). American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA)
- Turton, et al. “Guidelines for Best Practice in the Audiological Management of Adults with Severe and Profound Hearing Loss.” Seminars in Hearing 41, no. 03 (August 2020): 141–246. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0040-1714744. “Unless contraindicated, the hearing care professional should activate the t-coil where fitted and arrange for the client to experience a good working inductive loop, as this remains the most widespread and effective way to hear well in public spaces.”
Hearing Aid Challenges
- Hearing Aid Programming: Pearls and Pitfalls. Dr. Douglas Beck Hearing Matters Podcast. 3/19/24. Imagine discovering that the key to optimal hearing isn’t just in choosing a hearing aid, but in the precise individual calibration. This episode features a conversation with Dr. Ron Leavitt, a renowned audiologist who shines a light on the critical gaps in “best fit” settings provided by hearing aid manufacturers, compared to the National Acoustic Laboratories (NAL) targets. (webpage)
- Are you a Paramecium Racer? An acronym points the way forward in hearing care. Sara Bloom, The Hearing Journal. September 2010 (5 pages, pdf). “Of all those interviewed for this article, Sergei Kochkin, PhD, executive director of the Better Hearing Institute, is the most critical of the incompetence he sees as insidious throughout the industry. He believes that many hearing aids are not fitted properly; that based on letters he receives, discomfort and dissatisfaction among patients are rampant; and that the benefit of amplification when not properly fitted is often minimal. “Upgrade your skills,” Kochkin urges, calling on the professional organizations to police their members and audit their practices.”
- Used Alone, Hearing Aids Fail to Deliver. Audiology Practices. September 2013. Linda Remensnyder, AuD. “All hearing aids and all CIs use microphones. The microphone is the first component followed by sound processors that are fully dependent upon microphone input. And all microphones have three annoying characteristics: they pick up what is loudest, they pick up what is closest and they have absolutely no idea which sound is important to the listener.” (pdf)
- Why restaurants are so loud, and what science says we can do about it 6/2/24 Washington Post (webpage)