Real-Ear Measurements 145
5.6 Live Speech Testing
The Spectrum Analysis mode, available with the Composite/Digital Speech
Option, lets you use the external signal of your choice with your real-ear mea-
surements. You can use sounds from a CD player, the patient’s own voice, or
the voice of a spouse or family member. This section describes several different
methods of using external signal in your real-ear measurements.
When you use live speech in the real-ear SPL screen, you can compare the hear-
ing aid’s response to the actual speech to the patient’s threshold and uncomfort-
able levels. This can be a great counseling tool for your patient.
5.6.1 Using Speech as a Test Signal
Is it sometimes useful to use real speech as a test signal, to see how the aid
response is a real-world environment. This is especially useful if you have the
spouse or family member of the client in the testing room. You can use his/her
voice as the test signal in order to educate both the client and the spouse how
close they need to be to each other in order for the hearing aid to work effec-
tively.
The live speech measurement can be taken in any measurement screen, but this
section will focus on measurements in the Real-Ear SPL screen.
To set up for live speech mapping:
1. Follow the instructions in Section 5.2.4 and 5.2.5 to set up the client and
hearing aid for real-ear measurements. The sound field speaker does not
need to be leveled for live speech testing.
2. Insert the patient’s hearing aid carefully and turn it on with the volume con-
trol at the normal user setting.
3. Follow the instructions in Section 5.3 to create a real-ear target, if desired.
4. Enter the Real-Ear SPL screen. See Section 5.1.2 for instructions.
5. Use [F4] to select COMP.
6. Press [∨] repeatedly until the SOURCE is turned OFF. This is displayed in
the source box on the display above the F3 key.
7. Press [MENU] to open the local menu.
8. Use [∨, ∧] to select VISIBLE SPEECH. The BARS selection will display a set
of vertical bars indicating the maximum and minimum response to the test.
The AVERAGE selection will display a second curve during the measure-
ment, indicating the average response over the time of the test using a peak
decay method.
9. Use [∨] to select NOISE RED (COMP) and [<, >] to select the amount of
averaging you would like to do when the measurements are performed.
Large noise reduction numbers will create a smoother curve that will update
