Conductive hearing loss and temporal processing
Reviewed by Sunil Sharma

This Turkish study looked at the effect of using hearing aids on auditory temporal processing (the ability of the hearing system to process the temporal properties of a sound stimulus in a certain period of time) in conductive hearing loss. A total of 68 adults with bilateral mild to moderate conductive hearing loss were included with a mean age of 38.3 years (range of 19-58 years). Within this group, 23 adults were bilateral hearing aid users, 22 adults were unilateral hearing aid users, 23 adults had no use of amplification, and 31 healthy adults were included as a control group. In order to assess auditory temporal processing gaps in noise (GIN) threshold, duration pattern tests (DPT), and frequency pattern tests (FPT) were used. When ranked in order from highest to lowest for each of these tests, consistently the normal hearing group scored highest, followed by bilateral hearing aid users, unilateral hearing aid group aided ear, unilateral hearing aid group unaided ear and, finally, no hearing aid group. This study suggests that conductive hearing loss can have a long-term effect on auditory temporal processing and, thus, early intervention with appropriate amplification can be beneficial in conductive hearing loss with regard to auditory temporal processing.

Hearing aid use on auditory temporal processing in conductive hearing loss.
Topcu MT, Ciprut A, Akdeniz E.
B-ENT
2022;18:162-9.