Objective 

To determine and compare the benefits a novel adhesive bone-conduction system and a conventional bone-conduction hearing aid (BCHA) on a softband for children with conductive hearing loss.

Study Design 

Prospective, single-subject randomized, crossover trial.

Setting 

Tertiary referral center in Australia.

Participants 

Eight children aged from 4 to 17 years with conductive hearing loss.

Intervention 

Rehabilitative with participants using the novel adhesive bone-conduction aid and a BCHA.

Main Outcome Measures 

Aided thresholds, as well as speech perception in quiet, unaided and aided with the novel adhesive bone-conduction aid and BCHA on a softband. For the six older children, speech in noise testing was also conducted.

Results 

The mean unaided four frequency average hearing levels was 48 dB HL for air conduction, 10.5 dB HL for bone conduction, with a mean air-bone gap in the aided ear of 37.5 dB HL.

Four-frequency average hearing level aided thresholds were 20.2 dB for the novel device and 19.8 dB for the BCHA, with no significant difference between the devices. Aided monosyllabic word scores improved from an average of 45% in the unaided condition to 81.6 and 85% for the novel adhesive and BCHA devices, respectively. Aided speech in noise performance improved, on average, by 1.6 dB SNR when wearing the BCHA and the novel adhesive device, with no significant difference in performance between the two devices.

Conclusions 

The novel device provided equivalent performance to the BCHA on all measures and can be considered as an alternative device for pediatric patients with conductive hearing loss.