Modern hearing aids do not deal well with noise. They amplify low sounds and do nothing about loud noises.
This type of amplification – known as compression amplification – doesn’t work well when the hearing aid is used in noisy environments. In his doctoral thesis, Rolph Houben concludes that when compression amplification is used, speech is harder to understand than when each sound is amplified individually, as in linear amplification. He recommends that in situations where there is a great deal of background noise or in loud environments, hearing aids be adjusted for speech, something that doesn’t happen now.
Houben received his PhD from Utrecht University on October 10. The title of his thesis is, “The Effect of Amplitude Compression on the Perception of Speech in Noise by the Hearing Impaired.”