Effects of age and mild hearing loss on speech recognition in noise

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Abstract
Using an adaptive strategy, the effects of mild sensorineural hearing loss and adult listeners'' chronological age on speech recognition in babble were evaluated. The signal-to-babble ratio required to achieve 50% recognition was measured for three speech materials presented at soft to loud conversational speech levels. Four groups of subjects were tested: normal-hearing listeners > 44 years of age, subjects < 44 years old with mild sensorineural hearing loss and excellent speech recognition in quiet, normal-hearing listeners > 65 with normal hearing, and subjects > 65 yr old with mild hearing loss and excellent performance in quiet. Groups 1 and 3, and groups 2 and 4 were matched on the basis of pure-tone thresholds, and thresholds for each of the 3 speech materials presented in quiet. Groups 1 and 2 were similar in terms of mean age and age range, as were groups 3 and 4. Differences in performance in noise as a function of age were observed for both normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners despite equivalent performance in quiet. Subjects with mild hearing loss performed significantly worse than their normal-hearing counterparts. These results and their implications are discussed.

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