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Abstract
Prosser S, Turrini M, Arslan E. Effects of different noises on speech discrimination by the elderly. Acta Otolaryngol (Stockh) 1991; Suppl. 476: 136—142.
Elderly people often complain of difficulty in speech discrimination, especially in noise environments. The effects of 4 competing noises on sentence intelligibility were evaluated: speech noise, cocktail party noise, traffic noise and continuous discourse. A comparison was made between young and old normally hearing subjects and young and old hearing—impaired subjects with similar audiograms. The old people with normal hearing had slightly reduced discrimination compared to the young during competing speech noise and cocktail noise. Discrimination in the hearing—impaired elderly was also significantly worse than in the young people with normals hearing, during competing cocktail party noise, traffic noise and continuous discourse. The young hearing—impaired had results between young normal—hearing subjects and old hearing—impaired, except for continuous discourse. Thus the effects of age on speech discrimination in noise are subtle, becoming more pronounced in the presence of hearing loss. Age—related changes in primary speech discrimination were particularly evident during competing continuous discourse.