A 2-YEAR FOLLOW-UP EXAMINATION OF A BEHAVIORAL TREATMENT APPROACH TO HEARING TACTICS

Twenty elderly hearing impaired patients participated in a two-year fo llow-up study on the effects of behavioural treatment aimed at increas ing coping with hearing impairment. Subjects who had received treatmen t were compared with untreated controls using the Hearing Coping Asses sment (HCA) and the Communication Strategies Subscale of the Communica tion Profile for the Hearing Impaired (CPHI-CSS). The group treatment package included applied relaxation, video self-modelling, exposure, i nformation, and the teaching of hearing tactics. Results showed some e ffects in favour of the treatment on the HCA at post-treatment, but no differences at follow-up. The results on the CPHI-CSS using pre-treat ment HCA scores as covariate showed significant multivariate effects o n the subscales measuring maladaptive behaviours, non-verbal strategie s, and on the CPHI-CSS total score. No significant multivariate effect was found for the verbal strategies subscale. As no pre-treatment dat a were available, results on the CPHI-CSS should be interpreted with c aution. Overall, the results from this study give some support for the implementation of behavioural treatment in audiological rehabilitatio n.