Can You Hear Me Now? How to Get the Most from Your Hearing Aids

Many people have tried to use hearing aids but stopped because the devices were not effective at improving their understanding of speech and were often painfully noisy. Sometimes, the hearing aids just weren’t programmed correctly. 

This seminar is open to people with good hearing as well as those with hearing loss. The goals are: 

• to deepen understanding of what sounds are missing among people with the most common kind of hearing loss
• to explain and demonstrate what audio technology can and can’t do to maximize speech intelligibility and musical experiences using the hearing that people still have
• to explore many ways that people with hearing loss can make conversations easier to understand, with or without hearing aids
• to know what can be adjusted in most hearing aids and how they affect the listening experience. That knowledge can improve the interaction with an audiologist to get the best possible results (or help you tune your hearing aids yourself)

Barry Cook, Ph.D. is a lifelong audio hobbyist and musician who happens to wear hearing aids. He is a retired media researcher and was a faculty member at CUNY and Yale University. He holds an A.B. from Harvard College and a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Yale University.