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Biomedical subjects

K W Berger

Publications and source records attributed to K W Berger.

15 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1991

Effect of UCL on aided Articulation Index calculation.

Nine hearing threshold patterns and uncomfortable loudness level combinations were used in comparing three hearing aid prescriptive procedures by means of a modified Articulation Index. In a minority of the comparisons a small dynamic range required a reduction from the gain that would have been prescribed. For these cases reducing the real-ear gain, in turn, resulted in a mean lowering of the Articulation Index by 0.03 for POGO and 0.08 for the Berger Method.

Amplifiers, Electronic↗
PubMed1991

Introduction to three current hearing aid fitting methods.

The three hearing aid prescription procedures most frequently used in the United States are summarized: POGO, the Berger Method, and the NAL Method. The gain portion of each of the three is based upon a modification of the 1/2 gain rule, which was originally published by Samuel F. Lybarger. The three methods differ in the number of test frequencies involved and on the amount of gain prescribed at the various frequencies. The Berger and NAL procedures incorporate the speech spectrum in their gain-frequency response formulas. With two representative threshold patterns, POGO and the Berger Method produced a higher Articulation Index than the NAL Method.

Auditory Threshold↗
PubMed1976

Early bone conduction hearing aid devices.

The concept of bone conduction hearing is old. By the 16th century the conduction of sound by a rod or the staff of a spear was reported by a number of writers; however, these writers considered these phenomena as a curiosity rather than having practical value. In the 17th century, John Bulwer and George Sibscota, both interested in the deaf and their education, applied the bone conduction phenomenon as an aid to defective hearing. Soon, independent reports from Germany, France, and Italy also described bone conduction rod devices as aids to impaired hearing. In 1879, the Audiphone, a hearing fan that operated by bone conduction, was patented. The invention of the Audiphone triggered the development and sale of a number of similar devices that had considerable popularity until the invention of the carbon-electric hearing aid in the early 1900s.

Bone Conduction↗
PubMed1975

In search of a language intervention lexicon.

An analysis of the syntactic, semantic and phonological features of a corpus of therapy words drawn form recent publications dealing with remedial language instruction was performed to determine whether these words would in theory support full grammatical acquisition. Percentage of occurrence data were compared with distributional statiscs for adult (Berger, 1967a) and child (Weir, 1962) usage. The results suggested a bias in favor of concrete words referring to everyday objects around the home, nouns, verbs and adjectives, and morphemes of simple syllable and sound structure. In general the words analyzed appeared more suitable for children under 3 years of age than for older children. Of factors guiding the clinician's selection of therapy words, native speaker intuition for distributional characteristics of the language was regarded as the major factor of judgment.

Age Factors↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Comparison of hearing threshold level and most comfortable loudness level in hearing aid prescription.

In three experiments, the predictability of the hearing aid gain actually used by clients was compared with that predicted by using data based upon hearing threshold level and data based upon most comfortable loudness level. At the frequencies tested, the mean difference between the predicted and obtained gain was smaller when based upon prediction from the hearing threshold level. It is concluded that from the standpoint of predicting user's gain, the hearing threshold level provides greater accuracy than does most comfortable loudness level.

Auditory Threshold↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Prescription of hearing aids: a rationale.

A rationale is presented for a hearing aid prescription. Once the choice of ear(s) to be fitted is determined and whether air or bone conduction fitting is appropriate, output and gain-frequency response characteristics are prescribed on the basis of audiometric test data. The specific prescription data for ouptut are based on uncomfortable loudness levels, and gain-frequency response data are based on a formula that was determined by imposing typical speech parameters over a given hearing loss. A hearing aid prescription is not only intended to predict amplification needs but, just as important, it also provides a method for testing the results of those predictions.

Audiometry↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Negative needle deflection of the acoustic reflex in otosclerotics.

The preoperative audiometric and electroacoustic impedance test results of 24 surgically confirmed otosclerotics are reviewed with special attention given to the direction of needle deflection during acoustic reflex testing. Information on the direction of needle deflection during acoustic reflex testing was gathered at 5 or 10 dB above reflex threshold. In 12 of the 24 patients acoustic reflexes were present, and in each case the response included negative needle deflections. The presence or absence of the acoustic reflex seemed to be related to the reported duration of the hearing loss.

Acoustic Impedance Tests↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Genealogy of the words "audiology" and "audiologist".

A chronology of the use of the words Audiology and Audiologist is traced through a number of American professional and trade journals. The coining of the word Audiology has been credited variously to Mayer B. A. Schier, Willard B. Hargrave, Stanley Nowak, Norton Canfield, and Raymond Carhart. Attempts to document published use of the word before 1946 were unsuccessful.

Audiometry↗