Ricketts Todd A, Picou Erin M, Galster Jason
Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN.
Starkey Hearing Technologies, Eden Prairie, MN.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2017 Jan 1;60(1):263-275. doi: 10.1044/2016_JSLHR-H-16-0097.
The hearing aid microphone setting (omnidirectional or directional) can be selected manually or automatically. This study examined the percentage of time the microphone setting selected using each method was judged to provide the best signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for the talkers of interest in school environments.
A total of 26 children (aged 6-17 years) with hearing loss were fitted with study hearing aids and evaluated during 2 typical school days. Time-stamped hearing aid settings were compared with observer judgments of the microphone setting that provided the best SNR on the basis of the specific listening environment.
Despite training for appropriate use, school-age children were unlikely to consistently manually switch to the microphone setting that optimized SNR. Furthermore, there was only fair agreement between the observer judgments and the hearing aid setting chosen by the automatic switching algorithm. Factors contributing to disagreement included the hearing aid algorithm choosing the directional setting when the talker was not in front of the listener or when noise arrived only from the front quadrant and choosing the omnidirectional setting when the noise level was low.
Consideration of listener preferences, talker position, sound level, and other factors in the classroom may be necessary to optimize microphone settings.
助听器的麦克风设置（全向或定向）可以手动或自动选择。本研究调查了在学校环境中，使用每种方法选择的麦克风设置被判定为能为目标谈话者提供最佳信噪比（SNR）的时间百分比。
共有26名年龄在6至17岁之间的听力损失儿童佩戴了研究用助听器，并在两个典型的上学日进行了评估。将带有时间戳的助听器设置与观察者根据特定聆听环境对能提供最佳SNR的麦克风设置的判断进行比较。
尽管接受了关于正确使用的培训，但学龄儿童不太可能始终如一地手动切换到能优化SNR的麦克风设置。此外，观察者的判断与自动切换算法选择的助听器设置之间只有一般程度的一致性。导致不一致的因素包括：当谈话者不在聆听者前方时，或当噪声仅从前象限传来时，助听器算法选择定向设置；而当噪声水平较低时，选择全向设置。
为优化麦克风设置，可能需要考虑聆听者偏好、谈话者位置、声级及教室中的其他因素。
