New Frontiers in the Amelioration of Hearing Loss: Part I-Aural Rehabilitation and Sensory Aids

The focus of the Central Institute for the Deaf conference (March 2001) was the amelioration of hearing loss. As we increase our knowledge of the biology of sensory cells, it calls to question what, if any, potential applications to the treatment of hearing loss are possible. As our success with sensory aids and understanding speech-processing increases, it raises the question, what are the constraining issues and limitations of any potential biological treatments? The proceedings of this conference will be published in two issues. Part I (this issue) serves to update the reader on issues related to new ideas in aural rehabilitation and sensory aids. Part II (to be published later this year) will focus on hair cell development, regeneration, protection, and rescue.

Rehabilitative research can define the problems confronted by hearing-impaired individuals. Biological and sensory aids research can suggest designs for devices and treatments to alleviate those problems. In the end, however, it is rehabilitative programs that must capitalize on the successes of biological treatments and sensory aids, and compensate for their limitations. I hope that the information presented in these two issues will help those of us who focus on rehabilitation issues to see the future of this field more clearly.

Sensory aids provide the point of contact between the biology of hearing and rehabilitative programs. Rehabilitative research can set goals for both electroacoustic and biologic treatments. But until these treatments succeed in restoring normal hearing from a very early age, the ultimate benefit achieved with any intervention will be mediated by skilled clinicians working with up-to-date knowledge of related fields.

In the first article, Susan Binzer provides a needed perspective on aural rehabilitation-where we have been and where we are going. Next, Barbara Canlon presents new work in the area of sound conditioning, and this is complimented nicely by Craig Formby and Susan Gold's description of a method for producing habituation to sounds. Norm Erber focuses our attention on conversational performance and the potential importance of vision in communication. Continuing to focus on auditory-visual input, Jean-Pierre Gagne and colleagues describe the development of the AudiSee for classroom use. Mead Killion provides a comprehensive tutorial on signal-to-noise loss that is experienced by many of the individuals with whom we work. Michael Valente and Jane Enrietto add to this with an up-do-date description of directional microphone technology that can be used to provide an enhanced signal-to-noise ratio to the impaired system. Finally, Charles Watson and Gary Kidd provide recent data that highlight the individual differences we can expect in auditory abilities. Several abstracts from the conference also are included in this issue.

This issue of Seminars in Hearing provides a sampling of some of the new thinking in the fields of sensory aids and aural rehabilitation. Anyone practicing or conducting research in these areas will be excited by all of the possibilities.