HEARing CRC Supervisor: Louise Hickson and Sharon Cameron

HEARing CRC Project: R1.1.1b

Title:  The Effect of Aging and Hearing Impairment on Central Auditory Processing.

Detail: The overall aim of the project is to determine the prevalence of spatial processing disorder (SPD) in the hearing impaired population and to assess whether SPD can be effectively remediated within this population. Research has shown that SPD is a major cause of central auditory processing disorder (CAPD) in children with normal peripheral hearing.  Listeners with SPD are less able than normal hearers to process differences in the inter-aural time and intensity of auditory signals arriving at the ears from various locations in the environment.  As such, SPD predominantly manifests as an inability to understand speech in the presence of background noise.

Hearing impaired persons frequently report problems understanding speech in background noise.  It remains unclear how much of this difficulty is caused by deterioration in central processes and how much can be explained by their hearing loss.

Background: Helen Glyde graduated with a Masters of Audiology from the University of Queensland in 2007. Upon completion of her degree Helen worked as a clinical audiologist until taking up a position as a research audiologist at the National Acoustic Laboratories. She is currently working in the area of auditory processing research.