Hearing aids reduce listening effort in school-age children who are hard of hearing

Objective:For children who are hard of hearing, listening to speech can be effortful, especially in noisy classroom environments. While hearing aids provide improved access to sound, it is still unclear if hearing aids also help to reduce listening-related effort. The current study tested the hypothesis that hearing aids can reduce listening effort when children who are hard of hearing listen to sentences in quiet or noise.Design:School-age children who are hard of hearing who used hearing aids participated in a dual-task paradigm. In the primary task, each child listened to and repeated back sentences that were presented in quiet or in noise with and without their hearing aids. Concurrently, participants responded on a keyboard to a simple visual reaction time task. The change in reaction time of the secondary task served as a proxy for listening effort, while primary task performance was fixed at approximately 70% accuracy. In addition, children provided subjective feedback about their effort exertion during the experiment.Results:Reaction times were faster, indicating less effort, in the aided condition compared to the unaided condition. Children reported lower ratings of listening effort in the aided condition and when listening in quiet. Dual-task and subjective report results both indicated a reduction of listening effort due to use of amplification, but differed in the effect of noise on effort.Conclusions:This is the first study to demonstrate that hearing aids reduce listening effort in school-age children who are hard of hearing. Overall, both dual-task reaction times and subjectiveratings are sensitive to changes in listening effort within this population. The current study makes a novel and important contribution to the literature on listening effort in school-age children who are hard of hearing. The results of this study have important clinical implications as we demonstrate hearing aids provide benefits beyond auditory access and support consistent hearing aid use in children who are hard of hearing.