Improvement of speech perception in quiet is an important goal of hearing aid provision. In practice, results are highly variable. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between type and extent of hearing loss (audiogram type), maximum word recognition score, and aided speech perception.
Pure tone and speech audiometric data of 740 ears in 370 patients were reviewed. All subjects visited our hearing center for hearing aid evaluation between 2012 and 2017. The maximum word recognition score (WRS max) and the monosyllabic speech recognition score with hearing aids, WRS 65(HA) were analyzed for 10 different standard audiogram types.
The WRS 65(HA) with hearing aids for different degrees of hearing loss is, within error boundaries, comparable to previous investigations and shows a difference of 10–20 percentage points to the WRS max. This difference tends to be larger for flat and moderately sloping audiograms compared to steep-sloping audiograms. The ratio WRS 65(HA)/WRS max can be interpreted as an efficiency factor for hearing aid provision, since it relates speech recognition with hearing aids to the maximally achievable information carrying capacity of the hearing impaired.