Characteristics of Hearing Aid Fittings in Infants and Young Children

Hearing aids provide the basis for improving audibility and minimizing developmental delays in children with mild to severe hearing loss. Multiple guidelines exist to recommend methods for optimizing amplification in children, but few previous studies have reported hearing aid fitting outcomes for a large group of children. The current study sought to evaluate the proximity of the fitting to prescriptive targets and aided audibility of speech, as well as survey data from pediatric audiologists who provided hearing aids for the children in the current study. Deviations from prescriptive target were predicted to have a negative impact on aided audibility. Additionally, children who were fitted using verification with probe microphone measurements were expected to have smaller deviations from prescriptive targets and improved audibility than cohorts fitted without these measures