Background and Aim: It is well established that adult sensory systems can reorganize following environmental changes hearing aid stimulates a deprived auditory system resulting in changes in received stimuli and may be capable of inducing changes within the auditory system abilities such as difference limen for intensity. Hearing aid fitting induces perceptual and physiological modifications. The present study was conducted to evaluate the effects of hearing aid use on the intensity discrimination performance.
Methods: The study group consisted of 30 monaural users of hearing aid with symmetrical moderate or moderately severe sensorineural hearing loss in both ears (15 males, 15 females), aged 45-65 years old with the mean of 57.73 and SD of 8.12 years. difference limen for intensity was measured at two frequencies, 500 Hz, 2000 Hz, and two intensity levels (10 dB SL, 40 dB SL). The results of fitted ears were compared with not-fitted ones.
Results: The results of the study showed better difference limen for intensity scores at high frequency and high intensity levels. A significant lower difference limen for intensity in fitted ears was observed compared with not-fitted ears (p<0.05), while there was no significant difference between the difference limen for intensity in the two groups at 500 Hz with 10 dB SL intensity (p=0.132).
Conclusion: Hearing aid use affects intensity discrimination performance. Besides, perceptual modification following use of hearing aid is confirmed by our study which suggests a possible functional plasticity due to hearing aid use. However, further