Speech Intelligibility and the Use of Hearing Protectors

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Abstract
On theoretical grounds, it is usually assumed that the use of hearing protectors in a noisy working environment has no influence upon speech intelligibility - in fact, may even increase it. In practice, however, people often do not wear hearing protectors, since these are widely believed to reduce speech intelligibility In the present article, a description is given of an investigation, carried out among 537 subjects, into the influence of hearing protectors upon the speech intelligibility of people suffering from noise-induced hearing loss. From this analysis, it has become clear that the use of ear-muffs only leads to an improvement in speech intelligibility in persons who, according to their pure-tone audiogram, suffer from relatively small hearing losses. In general, it may be said that an increase in the severity of hearing losses will result in a reduced speech intelligibility

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