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The focus of research in the Robert B. Johnston Aural Rehabilitation Laboratory is on adult aural rehabilitation, with a special interest in assessing outcomes from group aural rehabilitation programs, the use of Goal Attainment Scaling as an outcome measure in aural rehabilitation, and the impact of self-efficacy on rehabilitation outcomes. Other areas of research include barriers and facilitators to the use of hearing assistive technologies for older adults, assessing workplace accessibility for older workers with hearing loss, a hearing accessibility audit of university classrooms, and universal hearing access. Dr Jennings’ past projects have included program development and outcome measurement in homes-for-the-aged and in community-based settings. Projects employ both quantitative and qualitative research methods.

The laboratory is currently undertaking two new projects:

• The efficacy of a functional rehabilitation program for older adults with hearing loss
• Exploring hearing aid use through the use of narratives

The efficacy of a functional rehabilitation program for older adults with hearing loss

Dr. Mary Beth Jennings in partnership with Dr. Jean-Pierre Gagné, Universite de Montreal, Ecole d'orthophonie et d'audiologie will study, “The efficacy of a functional rehabilitation program for older adults with hearing loss.” This project is funded by a one year See Grant in Aging from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). The project will be implemented with support from the Department of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology at the Canadian Hearing Society in Toronto.

Hearing loss is among the most prevalent chronic disorders reported among older adults (OA). In Canada, approximately 40% of persons between 65 and 74 years of age could benefit from audiologic rehabilitation (AR) services because they have hearing problems that impede their ability to perform many everyday activities. With the predictable demographic changes (i.e., the aging of baby-boomers), in the near future even more Canadians will require rehabilitation services to overcome the difficulties they experience due to their hearing loss. Hearing aids, the usual treatment for permanent hearing loss, cannot overcome all of the difficulties experienced by people who have a hearing impairment. Other types of rehabilitation services for people with hearing loss exist, however, the effectiveness of those programs has not been satisfactorily demonstrated. The long-term goal of our proposed research program is to evaluate the effectiveness of a group-based rehabilitation program designed specifically for OA with a permanent hearing loss. The intervention program is an extension of a program designed and evaluated as part of a PhD dissertation (Jennings, 2005). In the domain of AR, this group program is novel in at least four respects: 1- it uses the International Classification of Functioning (ICF: WHO, 2001) as its conceptual framework to conceive, design, and implement the training program as well as to measure the benefits (the outcome) provided to the participants; 2- it teaches the participants to apply a systematic problem-solving approach to overcome the specific activity limitations/participation restrictions they experience (Gagné & Jennings, 2000, 2007); 3- a component of the training program is designed to improve the participants’ Perceived Self-Efficacy (PSE) (Bandura, 1977) in order to increase the probability that the participants will actually implement the strategies that they learned; and, 4- consistent with the underlying principles of the ICF it uses a Goal Attainment Scaling approach (Kiresuk et al., 1968) as a rehabilitation tool and outcome measure in order to evaluate any decrease in specific activity limitations/ participation restrictions reported by individual participants. The goal of the proposed pilot investigation is to conduct a preliminary training study that will evaluate the efficacy of the AR program. The results of that study will be used to design a larger-scale, multi-site, Canada-wide research effectiveness investigation. The ultimate goal of the research program is: to design an intervention program that will improve the quality of life, maintain functional autonomy, and to promote healthy and successful aging of OAs with hearing loss, by increasing their participation in activities that are deemed important to them.

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Exploring hearing aid use through the use of narratives

Ms. Katherine Lockey’s M.Sc. thesis (committee members, Dr. Richard Seewald and Dr. Lynn Shaw) will focus on, “Exploring hearing aid use through the use of narratives.”

Approximately 30 to 50% of adults over the age of 65 have hearing loss. Of this group, few are owners of hearing aids and, of those who do own hearing aids; few are regular users of this technology. Those who do not use hearing aids have significant impacts on quality of life, interpersonal relationships, personal safety, independence, and participation in daily activities. The objective of this project is to explore, through audio-videotaped interviews using the narrative approach, the experiences of 3 to 5 consistent hearing aid users as they reflect on their progression from being non-users to consistent users of hearing aids. Holistic and categorical data analysis will be employed to explore the barriers, facilitators, and the process of behaviour change. The application of the Transtheoretical Model of Behaviour Change (TTM) to hearing aid use will also be explored. Results will assist audiologists to better understand the process of change individuals move through to consistently use hearing aids, and the factors involved in their decisional balance pattern over time. If this process is comparable to the stages of change in the TTM, audiologists may be able to facilitate behaviour change related to hearing loss through TTM strategies. 

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Other NCA labs include

Anechoic Chamber | Assistive Devices | Child Amplification |
Child Hearing Research | Digital Signal Processing | Speech Communication | Electrophysiology | Hearing Research Clinic | Hearing Science  | Robert B. Johnston Aural Rehabilitations