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How does unaided word recognition (or speech reception threshold) alter after wearing aids for some time?

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I am a fairly new hearing aid user (December 23) but it took me very little time to get used to the benefits of wearing my aids and I now have that feeling that most of you are probably familiar with of subjectively feeling “extra deaf” when not wearing them, even though of course my hearing hasn’t actually changed. My hearing loss is not bad at low frequencies and much worse at high (standard ski slope I guess). For now I have relatively good unaided speech reception threshold scores of 80-95% (seems to vary depending on the person speaking - my tests have mainly been live voice) in a controlled test setting (obviously not as good in a real life setting or I wouldn’t have realised I needed aids I suppose). While I have read things that suggest that wearing aids actually helps preserve word recognition overall and that years of hearing loss without correction makes it more difficult to relearn how to recognise words, I have not been able to find much about whether wearing aids constantly means your unaided word recognition goes down, perhaps because your brain is no longer as good at the interpretation/guesswork it has to get quite good at when you have hearing loss that is not corrected. Intuitively I would not particularly expect unaided pure tone audiometry results to change much as a result of using aids - either your ear picks up the tone or it doesn’t - but I could really imagine that because of the “brainwork” involved in interpreting speech, word recognition might be a different story. Can anyone either point me to any information on this or give me their own subjective impression about how their own unaided word recognition fared after they started wearing aids? While I’m very happy to wear my aids pretty much all of the time, I’d still prefer it if my understanding of speech didn’t tank totally in situations where I’m by chance not wearing them, so I’ve been wondering whether I should occasionally continue to challenge my brain by listening to speech unaided, or whether that is pointless. Any thoughts?

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I got my hearing aids 2 years ago. At that time I asked the what would happen if I didn’t get them. He said nothing bad. I wouldn’t lose word recognition if I waited until my hearing gets worse to get hearing aids. I wouldn’t age prematurely. I might get socially isolated, however, then depressed, etc.

I’ve never heard of negative consequences of wearing . I suppose my lip reading abilities may have decreased. (Never good at that anyhow haha). I certainly don’t miss having to strain to recognize words. I think as time goes and you get more accustomed to your HAs your concerns will fade away.

Thanks! Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been delighted by how much my have helped me and I’m not concerned about wearing them too much per se. I am just curious if not exercising that part of my brain that used to “decode” speech I couldn’t hear that well might make me lose that ability such that I become worse understanding things unaided (think of situations like hearing what someone is saying when you’ve just woken up or just got out of the shower or whatever).

Not an audiologist, but since you still have not bad unaided hearing, I personally don’t see the harm. You’d still be trying to understand language without the aids. It would the same as being in a worse situation with your aids (say, a person standing far away). When companies pay for research that says one thing or another, you need to take it with a grain of salt. A LOT of hearing aid research is paid for by some manufacturer or other.

when I got my Osia aid, my audi told me, “you’ll be surprised at how much less effort you’ll have to put into holding a conversation”.
I had no idea what she meant. Then, a week after activation of the aid, I completely understood!

With hearing loss, we have to focus our attention to a high degree just to hear others speaking; or for that matter, the world around us. We only have so much attention! Once that energy spent on extreme focus on speech and understanding is no longer needed, our minds are freed up for other things.

The thing is, one might not notice this immediately when you take out your hearing aids. For me, however, it’s a real effect. And apparently for most folks: this is why my audi confidently pointed this out to me before my activation, just by looking at my hearing chart.

Interesting question.

My hearing loss is similar, but a bit worse in bass and mids. I’ve worn aids since 2009, and generally have them in, whenever I’m awake, and not alone. If I take them out, I initially hear virtually nothing, but I’ve noticed that after a little while, and a lot of concentration, I can pick up a lot more than I thought I could. It’s like my brain has to acclimatise.

If I’m out, watching (or playing at) a gig, I usually take them out anyway, as my modern hearing aids just can’t cope with very loud music. I can usually hear speech later at night because alcohol makes people speak louder anyway.

Peter

LOL raetee! I think I had your in my 20s? I actually balked at getting my first pair of aids for FAR too long thinking the same thing as you said here: Will I become dependent upon the aids to comprehend speech over time?

Um. YES. But then, look at my audiogram! It sure hasn’t stayed the same over the decades. By the time I got my first pair of aids in my early 30s, I was no longer concerned with the dependency factor. Crikey, I just wanted to HEAR! I was in grad school and needed to get on with my life. Yes, it’s been a challenge over the decades working, but I did my best and seemed to retire on a good note.

Even better, the aids coming out now are SO SO much better than what I started with (Starkeys with manual volume control wheel). So, if I felt that I could get an edge with aids, I’d GET THEM. The younger you are, the easier and faster you adapt to them. I have worn aids for decades now, and feel totally able to articulate how I want my world to sound from any audi I go to. I’m not in the least bit intimidated by or pushed into any make or model, cuz I totally know what I want from aids.

I’m guessing things will improve even more in the coming years, and who knows? For folks like me, able to stand next to a canon without a blink if someone shoots it off (aids OUT), I may even own a pair of aids where speech in LOUD LOUD places is totally understandable! That’s my quest and what inspires me to hang here and stay in the loop for what’s out there.

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