This study investigated the incidence of peripheral hearing loss in sickle cell anemia and the possibility of central auditory nervous system involvement. Nine Black subjects with sickle cell disease and nine with normal hemoglobin were administered an auditory test battery. There appeared to be no correlation between number of crisis episodes, duration of symptoms, severity of symptoms, and audiologic manifestations. Acoustic reflex testing suggested the possibility of "aired neural function in the sickle cell group. Whether impaired function was due to peripheral VIIIth nerve or to central brain stem involvement could not be determined. Results of the central auditory test battery suggested the possibility of impaired or reduced central auditory function in subjects with sickle cell anemia.

The SRA-10 is a tactile instrument which provides hearing impaired subjects with acoustic transforms that can be easily discriminated on the skin. Whether or not the SRA-10 is an effective means of training speech-language skills in profoundly hearing impaired subjects was the focus of this investigation. Two profoundly hearing impaired subjects were trained on phonetic reception/production tasks and on discrimination of multisyllabic words. Each subject served as his own control, wearing the SRA-10 for 14, 30 minute sessions, and a Bioacoustics 70-B auditory training unit for the same period of time. Results indicated a greater correct performance gain function with the SRA-10 than with the 70-B, suggesting that speech perception/production training using the SRA-10 or similar device would be superior to training using acoustic amplification.