The main focus of this special edition is integrating neuroscience and clinical practice to facilitate advances in hearing health care, including aural rehabilitation, device design, and service delivery. In the clinic and in the laboratory, there is increasing interest in defining the effects of hearing aid amplification on the brain. Hearing aids help to improve hearing by increasing the level at which sound enters the central auditory system; however, the transmission of amplified sounds, from the ear to the brain, is also important. From a neuroscience perspective, such lines of inquiry can spawn new insight into stimulation-related brain plasticity that might in turn help explain why some individuals (but not others) report increased speech understanding while wearing their devices. From a clinical perspective, there is interest in determining if measures of brain activity might be of use to the clinician during hearing aid selection and fitting.

In this call for papers, we are interested in manuscripts that address the role of physiological measures as they relate to the assessment and rehabilitation of people who wear hearing aids. A related interest pertains to the development, and/or potential use, of physiological measures of brain plasticity as they relate to people who wear hearing aids. Such quantification measures include EEG, MEG, fMRI, and so forth. Main topics include, but are not limited to:

• The Use of Brain Measures:
  • as a component of early hearing detection and intervention programs aimed at children with permanent early hearing losses, including implications for subpopulations of children (e.g., children with ANSD)
  • in relation to unilateral and/or bilateral hearing aid fitting
  • in the management of hearing loss across the lifespan
  • when evaluating hearing aid fitting
  • when quantifying neuroplasticity as it relates to maturation and other experience-related changes
  • in the contribution and quantification of cognition to hearing aid use
  • in the quantification of listening effort in people who wear hearing aid use
  • to assess the impact of auditory training and other intervention methods
  • to explore methodological issues involving the use of EEG, MEG, or fMRI in combination with hearing aids

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijol/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/ according to the following timetable: