The Development of a Pitch Training Program for Adult Cochlear Implant and Hearing Aid Users

Abstract

This article describes the development of a take-home, computerized pitch perception training program designed for application with adult cochlear implant (CI) and hearing aid (HA) users. Two different versions of the program were developed, one using a fixed-level protocol (where the difficulty of the task did not change according to the trainees' accuracy) and the second using an adaptive protocol whereby the difficulty level changed according to the trainee's responses. The training program was tested with 16 adult CI recipients and 20 HA users. The at-home training consisted of 40 30-minute sessions over 10 weeks. Both groups completed posttraining evaluation questionnaires that provided information to enable future refinement of the program into a form suitable for long term clinical use. This article describes the pitch training program that was developed—the considerations that were accounted for in its development; the stimuli, tasks, and procedure; its application in a pilot test conducted as part of this article; the data logging results that were collected when this training program was tried among a group of CI recipients and HA users; the feedback obtained from these participants; and finally the clinical applications and importance of such a program.

Keywords

cochlear implants - hearing aids - pitch perception - music - training

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