Development of Digital Hearing Aids
Christopher Schweitzer · Trends in Amplification · 1997
This issue of Trends has attempted to introduce the reader to many of the historical and developmental issues surrounding the digitization of hearing aid devices. The enormous scope of digital processing issues and their interface to otopathologic listeners can only be marginally presented within the page limitations of this paper. Nevertheless, it should be clear that a great deal of effort and expense have preceded the introduction of the first sustainable true digital products which have only recently reached consumer distribution. Loudness compensation strategies have already evolved to immediate implementation within the current generation of digital products. Field studies in progress will presumably help revise and refine those of future iterations. New processing strategies undoubtedly will evolve in close connection to expanded diagnostic techniques and elaborated understanding of individual processing requirements. Hence, continued research in speech science and auditory pathology will be important components of expanded industry successes. Equally important will be further reductions in the power requirements of processing circuits complemented by simultaneous increases in computational capacity. Those manufacturers who have already brought digital devices to the hearing impaired community are, of course, to be congratulated. Meanwhile, those professionals involved in the rehabilitative application of new processing technology and hearing-impaired consumers who have long awaited more effective technologies welcome the continued development of this exciting trend in audio enginearing. Genuine progress at the level of user benefits will almost certainly require vigorous efforts in advanced diagnostics and evaluation techniques (Cox, 1993; Byrne, 1996). M.I.T. professor, Nicholas Negroponte (1995), states categorically, “Being digital is the license to grow.” It is hoped that the reader of this issue of Trends will sense that the economic growth of the hearing aid industry, the growth of the professions that interface with it, and the expansion of improved rehabilitative assistance to the hearing impaired are all inexorably linked to the digital transformation that is now well under way. Many heroic and creative efforts by scientists all over the world formed the developmental foundations of current and future successes. Considerably more research and development will undoubtedly continue to enlarge the benefits and usefulness of DSP hearing aids, but to some extent each new device will contain within them a subtle portion of the many earlier efforts and discarded attempts to grow hearing aid operations into the powerful versatility of “being digital.”