Audiologists are calling for more research into the impact of noise-cancelling headphones on auditory processing, particularly among children and young people. 
The issue has been receiving media attention recently after a BBC News report asked whether headphones are to blame for young people’s current hearing problems. It followed the story of 25-year-old Sophie from London who wears noise-cancelling headphones around five hours a day and was diagnosed with an auditory processing disorder (APD) a neurological condition where the brain finds it difficult to interpret sounds.
Five NHS audiology departments told the BBC that there has been an increase in the number of young people referred to them from GPs with hearing issues – only to find their hearing is normal when tested and it is their ability to process sound that is struggling. APD is more common in neurodivergent people, those who have suffered from a brain injury or had a middle-ear infection as a child. However, more patients with APD are presenting outside of those categories, leaving audiologists to question if external factors, such as noise-cancelling headphones, are contributing.
The Edinburgh-based company Hearing Diagnostics is currently developing a new hearing screening tool which uses spatial processing. A pilot study revealed the surprise results that the over 50s performed better than the under 30s, contradicting almost all existing research into binaural processing. This suggest that younger adults may be experiencing unexpected difficulties with central auditory processing—potentially linked to modern listening habits such as near constant usage of headphones and personal listening devices.
“We weren’t expecting these results at all,” says Claudia Freigang, CEO and co-founder of Hearing Diagnostics. “This raises an important question regarding central auditory processing abilities in young adults, which could potentially have consequences in older life.”
Claire Benton, President of the British Academy of Audiology, says that by blocking out everyday sounds, the use of noise-cancelling headphones may delay the ability to process speech and noise – skills that are still developing in the brain until late teens.
“The main point is that anecdotally it does look like wearing noise cancelling headphone may have an impact on a person's listening abilities and so we need further research to look into this,” she says.
