Speech Discrimination In Quiet And In White Noise By Patients With Peripheral And Central Lesions

Abstract

Speech-discrimination scores in quiet and in white noise (0 dB S/N ratio) were obtained from six groups of subjects. Differences of 40% or more between scores in quiet and in white noise were observed for less than 1 % of the normal ears tested but were found for 8.0% of ears with noise trauma, 48% of ears with Meniere's disease, 62% of ears with subsequently surgically confirmed 8th-nerve tumors, 14% of ears of patients with multiple sclerosis, and 42% of ears contralateral to the lesion in patients with temporal-lobe damage.