Laboratory simulations of conversation scenarios: Questionnaire results from patient and partner

Hearing-related questionnaires can reveal much about the daily experience of hearing aid users. Nonetheless, results may not fully reflect the lived experience for several reasons, including: Users' limited awareness of all communication challenges, limitations of memory, and the subjective nature of reporting. Multiple factors can influence results obtained from questionnaires (Nelson et al. ASA Louisville). Consideration of the perspectives of both hearing aid wearers and communication partners may better reflect the challenges of two-way everyday communication. We have developed simulations of challenging conversational scenarios so that clients and their partners can make judgments of sensory aid performance in realistic, but controlled conditions. Listeners with hearing loss and their partners use a client-oriented scale (adapted from the COSI, Dillon, 1997) to report challenging real-life listening conditions such as small group conversations, phone conversations, health reports, and media. Representative scenarios are simulated in the laboratory where clients and partners make ratings of intelligibility, quality, and preference. Results are compared to outcome measures such as the Speech, Spatial and Qualities of Hearing Scale (SSQ, Gatehouse & Noble, 2004) and Social Participation Restrictions Questionnaire (SPaRQ, Heffernan et al., 2018). Results will help refine methods for evaluating the performance of emerging technologies for hearing loss.