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<p>Conventional hearing aid prescriptive procedures, such as NAL-NL2, are primarily derived from long-term average speech spectrum (LTASS) data of Western European languages. However, speech acoustics differ substantially across languages, and little research has addressed hearing aid fitting based on the acoustic-phonetic characteristics of Indian languages. This study aimed to develop and evaluate an Indian Language-Adjusted Gain (ILAG) model for Malayalam and Kannada speakers, reflecting their language-specific LTASS characteristics. The study comprised two experiments. Experiment 1 estimated LTASS for Malayalam and Kannada using speech samples from 20 native speakers across soft (50 dB SPL), conversational (65 dB SPL), and loud (80 dB SPL) levels, comparing them with the ANSI S3.5 (2017) reference to derive frequency-specific gain offsets. Experiment 2 assessed the perceptual effects of applying these offsets to the NAL-NL2 prescription in 50 adults with mild to severe sensorineural hearing loss. Participants were fitted in two conditions standard NAL-NL2 and ILAG and evaluated across speech and music stimuli for loudness comfort, tonal quality, and overall sound preference. Insertion gains under the ILAG condition were consistently elevated by approximately 3-5 dB relative to NAL-NL2, particularly in the low-frequency region (250 to 1000 Hz), mirroring the LTASS deviations identified in Experiment 1. Subjective evaluations revealed significantly higher ratings for loudness comfort and tonal quality with ILAG; however, participants characterised the perceptual improvements as modest. The ILAG approach was associated with modest improvement in subjective ratings of loudness comfort, tonal quality, and overall sound quality among Malayalam and Kannada language listeners compared to standard NAL-NL2 prescription. These findings suggest that language-specific adaptations may influence hearing-aid preferences and perceived listening quality. Further research across other Indian languages, listening conditions, and device types is warranted to establish broader applicability of this approach.</p>

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Development and evaluation of an Indian Language-Adjusted Gain model for hearing aid fitting in Malayalam and Kannada speakers

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

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  • 发表日期：

    2026年8月1日

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  • Vijaya Kumar Narne,
  • Payyoor Valappil Nafla,
  • Saransh Jain,
  • Dhanya Mohan,
  • Mohammed Badariya,
  • Mohammed Saeeda,
  • Reesha Oovattil Hussain,
  • Sreeraj Konadath

摘要

Conventional hearing aid prescriptive procedures, such as NAL-NL2, are primarily derived from long-term average speech spectrum (LTASS) data of Western European languages. However, speech acoustics differ substantially across languages, and little research has addressed hearing aid fitting based on the acoustic-phonetic characteristics of Indian languages. This study aimed to develop and evaluate an Indian Language-Adjusted Gain (ILAG) model for Malayalam and Kannada speakers, reflecting their language-specific LTASS characteristics. The study comprised two experiments. Experiment 1 estimated LTASS for Malayalam and Kannada using speech samples from 20 native speakers across soft (50 dB SPL), conversational (65 dB SPL), and loud (80 dB SPL) levels, comparing them with the ANSI S3.5 (2017) reference to derive frequency-specific gain offsets. Experiment 2 assessed the perceptual effects of applying these offsets to the NAL-NL2 prescription in 50 adults with mild to severe sensorineural hearing loss. Participants were fitted in two conditions standard NAL-NL2 and ILAG and evaluated across speech and music stimuli for loudness comfort, tonal quality, and overall sound preference. Insertion gains under the ILAG condition were consistently elevated by approximately 3-5 dB relative to NAL-NL2, particularly in the low-frequency region (250 to 1000 Hz), mirroring the LTASS deviations identified in Experiment 1. Subjective evaluations revealed significantly higher ratings for loudness comfort and tonal quality with ILAG; however, participants characterised the perceptual improvements as modest. The ILAG approach was associated with modest improvement in subjective ratings of loudness comfort, tonal quality, and overall sound quality among Malayalam and Kannada language listeners compared to standard NAL-NL2 prescription. These findings suggest that language-specific adaptations may influence hearing-aid preferences and perceived listening quality. Further research across other Indian languages, listening conditions, and device types is warranted to establish broader applicability of this approach.