Development and Plasticity in Normal and Impaired Ears

The study investigates the effects of conductive and sensorineural hearing loss on the ability to process speech and other complex sounds in the presence of competing noise. Psychoacoustic and speech perception approaches will be used to determine hearing abilities in listeners with hearing loss and to determine whether the derived data can be used to predict outcomes with hearing aids. The results will advance our basic understanding of the development of hearing in normal-hearing listeners and in hearing impaired patients.