App: HearApp
Developer: BioSpeech, Inc.
Genres: Medical, Health & Fitness

HearApp helps people with listening challenges learn to hear better.  It's the perfect exercise plan for children and adults with hearing loss looking to achieve optimal hearing.  Rooted in research and praised by users and audiologists alike, the app is fun, effective, affordable, and easy to use—at home or in clinic.

How it works:
HearApp takes you through a series of auditory exercises.  You'll practice identifying and discriminating words and phrases in quiet and with background noise.  A pre-test places you or your child at the appropriate practice level.  Visual prompts, repetition, and other listening helpers provide support along the way.  Your progress is saved automatically and used by HearApp to personalize your listening sessions.

Our goal:
HearApp is the result of several years of hearing research by BioSpeech, Inc., a biomedical research company located in Portland, Oregon, specializing in speech and hearing technology.  The goal of HearApp is to build the listening skills of individuals with hearing loss, so that they can comprehend the language in their environment.  With HearApp, individuals with hearing loss can begin to discriminate and identify the speech sounds in the spoken language around them.

Background:
In the United States, there are roughly 35 million individuals with some degree of hearing loss.  Of these people, around 10 million have hearing aids and 67,000 have cochlear implants.  Intensive auditory rehabilitation training is needed to fully realize the potential benefit of these devices and fully hear and understand speech.  Face-to-face training with a specialist is expensive and not always accessible.  HearApp aims to make auditory rehabilitation training more accessible for children and adults alike.

Release notes:
- HearApp is now available for iPhone!
- Bug fixes