ABA Amplification & Aural Rehabilitation 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which hearing aid style places all components in the ear canal and offers the greatest cosmetic appeal but the least power?
- Behind-the-ear (BTE)
- Receiver-in-canal (RIC)
- Completely-in-canal (CIC) (Correct answer)
- Body-worn aid
Correct answer: Completely-in-canal (CIC)
The completely-in-canal (CIC) style sits entirely within the ear canal and is cosmetically discreet but is limited in output power and feature availability due to its small size.
Question 2: The NAL-NL2 prescriptive formula is based on the principle of:
- Maximizing audibility of all speech sounds equally
- Equalizing loudness across frequencies to match normal hearing
- Maximizing speech intelligibility while maintaining overall loudness at a normal level (Correct answer)
- Restoring the full dynamic range of hearing
Correct answer: Maximizing speech intelligibility while maintaining overall loudness at a normal level
NAL-NL2 prescribes gain to maximize speech intelligibility by emphasizing audibility of speech phonemes while keeping overall loudness comfortable and near normal.
Question 3: In aural rehabilitation, 'speechreading' supplements auditory information by using:
- Only lip movements of the talker
- Visual cues from lips, face, and body language along with contextual cues (Correct answer)
- Written transcripts of spoken messages
- Vibrotactile devices worn on the wrist
Correct answer: Visual cues from lips, face, and body language along with contextual cues
Speechreading integrates visual cues (lip movements, facial expressions, gestures) with residual auditory information and contextual knowledge to improve speech understanding.
Question 4: A patient with a sloping high-frequency sensorineural hearing loss is MOST likely to benefit from a hearing aid with:
- Uniform amplification across all frequencies
- Greater gain in high frequencies than low frequencies (Correct answer)
- Bass-only amplification to compensate for loudness recruitment
- A flat frequency response
Correct answer: Greater gain in high frequencies than low frequencies
A sloping high-frequency loss requires more gain at high frequencies where hearing is poorest, to restore audibility of high-frequency speech cues such as fricatives.
Question 5: The purpose of the vent in a custom earmold is to:
- Increase high-frequency gain
- Allow low-frequency sound to bypass amplification and reduce occlusion (Correct answer)
- Improve retention of the earmold in the ear canal
- Prevent moisture from entering the hearing aid
Correct answer: Allow low-frequency sound to bypass amplification and reduce occlusion
A vent allows low-frequency environmental sound to enter the ear canal directly, reducing occlusion and low-frequency amplification, and improving sound quality and comfort.
Question 6: Which assistive listening device (ALD) is MOST effective at eliminating the negative effects of distance and reverberation for a hearing aid user in a large auditorium?
- Personal FM system (Correct answer)
- Infrared system
- Induction loop (hearing loop)
- Bluetooth-only streaming
Correct answer: Personal FM system
A personal FM system transmits the talker's voice via radio frequency directly to the listener's receiver, effectively eliminating distance and reverberation by placing the microphone near the speaker's mouth.
Question 7: During real-ear measurement, the probe tube microphone is placed approximately:
- At the entrance of the ear canal (concha)
- 5–6 mm from the tympanic membrane (Correct answer)
- At the midpoint of the pinna
- Adjacent to the hearing aid microphone port
Correct answer: 5–6 mm from the tympanic membrane
The probe tube is positioned 5–6 mm from the tympanic membrane to obtain accurate sound pressure level measurements at the eardrum without artifact from standing waves.
ABA Amplification & Aural Rehabilitation 3
Which hearing aid style places all components in the ear canal and offers the greatest cosmetic appeal but the least power?