Communication on telephone is challenging for people with hearing loss, due to a number of factors:~The lack of visual cues (lip-reading),~The lack of binaural abilities,~The presence of (loud) background noise in a variety of listening situations,~A modified speech signal due to reduced frequency bandwidth and~Difficulties coupling the phone to the CI. For hearing aid users, for instance, the inventions for improving speech intelligibility on the phone range from an integrated tele coil and individual hearing programs to specially designed phone devices.~No formal studies involving these devices have been carried out with CI users.~Thus, this comparative study includes hearing aid as well as CI and bimodal users to evaluate the different hearing solutions for communication on telephone in terms of intelligibility and ease of use:~Phonak DECT - cordless telephone for HA-, CI- users and bimodal users~Phonak EasyCall - accessories for Bluetooth capable mobile telephones for HA-, CI- and bimodal users~Phonak DuoPhone - streaming function, which provides the speech signal to both ears
Communication on telephone is challenging for people with hearing loss. For hearing aid users, for instance, the inventions for improving speech intelligibility on the phone range from an integrated tele coil and individual hearing programs to specially designed phone devices. No formal studies involving these devices have been carried out with CI users.~Thus, this comparative study includes hearing aid as well as CI and bimodal users to evaluate different hearing solutions for communication on telephone in terms of intelligibility and ease of use.