§ Mr. Alfred Morrisasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the progress of the work so far undertaken by the Institute of Hearing Research and on the institute's plans for further work to help the hearing-impaired.
§ Mr. MacfarlaneA copy of the institute's annual report for 1977–78 has been placed in the Library. Research continues on speech and speech perception and a new diagnostic speech test has been developed. A major component of the institute's future work will be a large epidemiological study of hearing impairment. The institute is also planning work 277W directed to the design of new hearing aids: this includes laboratory investigations of methods for specifying the properties of such aids and their optimum performance.