Q&A

Subject: Two sons’ hearing aids

From: C and T

I am upgrading my two sons hearing aids. Now they have behind the ear Mini-Primo's and they are doing fine ie. mainstreamed in school, speech is good. My question is should we go Digital. What recommendations do you have? Their ages are 6 & 8. Any feedback I get would be helpful. Thank you.

Dear C and T,
I guess my answer must begin with a question to you. Are your sons complaining about the performance of their hearing aids? If not, and things are going well from your point of view, then there is no huge incentive to change things.

Many of the digital aids which entered the market in 1998 amount to digital versions of traditional analog hearing aids. That is, there is not an astounding difference in the way the aids handle sound. As digital aids, they do tend to be more finely adjustable and have much less circuit noise.

Some manufacturers., in my opinion, are truly using some of the extra capabilities provided by the digital signal processing chip to divide the sound spectrum into bands and then analyze each for speech vs. noise content. Bands containing predominantly noise are reduced giving a better signal-to-noise ratio and for many users, significantly easier and better understanding of speech in noisy environments.

However, many users are not comfortable with the loss of a volume control wheel. Perhaps it is just habit, perhaps the parameters of the hearing aid need adjusting or whatever. Some are annoyed at the activity of the hearing aid in adjusting sound automatically.

Since this answer was written many manufacturers have introduced digital power aids which might be of use to young children. Some can transmit back to a hand controller that can tell the parent if the batteries are OK and even the volume setting of the hearing aids! If your school uses FM systems, be sure that the aids you consider are compatible with the school's system.

Solveig