PURPOSE-This study investigates the effect of presence versus absence of amplification on various measures of audition in aided and unaided adults with unilateral, sensorineural hearing impairment.

METHODOLOGY-Aided and unaided subjects (Ss) between 25 and 75 years of age with unilateral, sensorineural hearing impairment were evaluated annually in years 1 and 2 (Y1,Y2). Measures included pure-tone thresholds, speech-recognition threshold, W-22 suprathreshold speech-recognition score (SSRS), nonsense syllable test (NST) score, acoustic admittance, brainstem auditory evoked potentials, and middle latency responses.

RESULTS-Of the 80 Ss (38 aided and 42 unaided) who were seen in Y 1, 39 (14 ...