The initial part of a hearing-aid fitting is typically performed using a prescriptive approach. Calculations that apply this approach may be performed based on a number of parameters: hearing threshold levels, prior experience with hearing aids, personal sound preferences, age, gender or types of listening situations that occur in a listener's everyday life.
Calculations could also be targeted at a certain type of hearing loss or take different aspects of hearing loss into consideration. These factors may all be used to derive hearing-aid settings that are appropriate for hearing-aid end-users.
ORCA Europe has performed several studies addressing hearing aid prescriptions that verify existing prescriptions and examine variations in prescriptions for selected groups of hearing aid users.