Multilingual model-based rehabilitative audiology

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Hearing loss is one of the most frequent sensory deficits challenging our modern, communication-oriented society with increasing tendency. However, the diagnostics and rehabilitation approaches with hearing devices are still limited and not standardized across countries. The lack of adequate standardized, internationally comparable methods hampers the ability to improve hearing treatment, to draw comparisons across studies, and to better understand the influence of the hearing loss on individual performance in the laboratory and in real life. The main objective of the current project therefore is to establish a unified, internationally compatible and theory-supported approach in speech audiology to be used in hearing diagnostics and the prescription and assessment of hearing device benefit. This will be achieved by linking speech-based clinical hearing diagnostics in various languages and speech intelligibility model development and evaluation. To assure the comparability of speech-based hearing diagnostics across languages, the Matrix sentence test will be applied for speech recognition measurements with humans and for model predictions with Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR)-based model (Schädler et al., 2015). The Matrix test will be first validated for different languages and then included in the clinical test battery used for hearing diagnostics. For objective assessment, the ASR-based model will be extended for the different languages, binaural hearing, and for predicting speech recognition in listeners with different hearing status. Since this ASR-based model allows for predicting the speech reception thresholds without tuning the model to any empirical data, the application of this modelling concept towards model-based hearing aid fitting or model-based preselection of hearing aid settings will be further exploited. In order to support such a systematical, model-assisted testing and comparison of different hearing aids, a Master Hearing Aid Platform will be applied in addition to the patient own hearing aids. This platform enables the implementation of different algorithms and their combination into one simulated hearing aid. It will be combined with software for speech recognition measurements to conduct multicenter-study in a comparable and well-controlled way. A common measurement protocol will be implemented in several international clinics and research centers to assess the individual benefit from different hearing aids. The project will be realized in close cooperation with leading clinics and research centers in different countries to facilitate multilingual comparisons and will contribute to establishing internationally accepted, unified standards in the field of speech audiometry and the prescription and assessment of hearing devices.