Poor Speech Recognition

First off.. I'm not a Audi or BC-HIS, nor do I play one on T.V.  That being said..

Averity, you said: "With the SPEECH RECOGNITION PROBLEM in my right ear, a hearing aid does not really help in that ear."

A HA does NOT improve and/or fix ones "speech recognition".  It only increases the volume in the frequency range that you're able to understand anyways.

As a example: if the natural hearing in your RIGHT ear has problems recognizing the f, s and th sounds (which are between 4,000 - 7,000 Hz), then NO amount of amplification is going to help.  If you can't hear or understand those letter sounds in that frequency range.. then you CAN'T hear or understand them! 

Averity, you also said: "My hearing sound without my hearing aid for my left ear seems to have increased recently."

As I understand it (and yes, this has also happened with me), it's NOT the sound (per say) that has increased in your LEFT ear, but the ability of your brain to once again recognize and understand those sounds which you haven't been able to in the past.

Here's a example using eyes in place of ears.

You've moved into a new neighborhood/subdivision that's thousands of miles away from where you use to be.  The subdivision has many inner twining streets that lead to only one entrance/exit.  It takes you about a half a hour the first time you try to get out, but every time you leave the experience becomes shorter and shorter until it now only takes you 5 minutes.

Why?  Because your eyes and brain have coordinated with each other to RECOGNIZE various land marks, ie: (at the brown house turn left.. three streets up where the cute girl in the bikini always seems to be sunning herself in the back yard (yeah, don't we all wish, LOL) turn right, etc.etc.)

Your brain and hearing does the same thing.  After many years of NOT being able to hear, your brain is now recognizing and re-programing itself to sounds.

Here's a link to a web site page that explains it much better than I can.  Part way down it talks about (and has diagrams on) Hearing Loss and Speech Intelligibility.  I hope this answers some of your questions.

http://www.hdhearing.com/learning/part2 … peechintel

Shi-Ku Chishiki  ShiKu.Chishiki@Gmail.com

Kate,

I just thought of this - but have you looked into seeing if you are a Cochlear Implant candidate? I wonder if that would be something that would work for you or not? Best to meet with doctor that does the CI's rather than an ENT that doesn't.

Olivia

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