Fitting hearing aids in children with severe hearing loss.

Because of limited initial data about the hearing loss of children and the difficulties in getting an optimal prescription, every fitting has to incorporate a procedure verifying or validating the final fitting. Fitting hearing aids should be focused on optimal speech recognition, even in children with very severe or profound hearing loss. When the MTS test is used, it is possible to optimize the gain and frequency response that gives the best possible prospects for speech recognition. The abilities for speech perception are a function of the PTA. For a hearing loss exceeding about 110 dB there are hardly any possibilities for adequate speech perception with hearing aids. Also, training on basal sound identification abilities shows no improvements. This is in contrast to hearing aid users with PTA between 90 and 110 dB.