Faculty of Education - Theses

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The accuracy of functional gain and insertion gain measurement in pre school children

Lear, Susan Jayne ( 2000)

To ensure that children with impaired hearing have optimal access to spoken communication, the amplification of sound to the child's ear canal is provided through the use of a hearing aid. To maximise the benefits of the hearing aid, the methods used to assess the amount of amplification provided to the child's ear must be accurate. Two methods used to assess the amount of amplification are functional gain and insertion gain. The real ear gain was measured in seventeen preschool children using these techniques. The study aimed to determine whether these measures were equivalent and to assess the accuracy of each measure in this preschool population. The results indicated that overall the two measures of real ear gain provided equivalent results. However when the differences between functional gain and insertion again were compared in individuals, a high level of variability between the measures were observed. Examination of the components of the test procedures suggested that insertion gain was a less variable, and hence a more accurate measure of real ear gain in preschool children.