The effect of wearing face mask on speech intelligibility in listeners with sensorineural hearing loss and normal hearing sensitivity

Abstract

Objective

This study aimed to investigate the effect of wearing a face mask on word recognition in hearing-impaired listeners.

Design

Word recognition scores were obtained in quiet and in different signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs 0, +5, and +10 dB) using two listening conditions (with N95 mask and with no-mask).

Study sample

Participants were forty-six listeners with normal hearing sensitivity and thirty-nine listeners with mild to moderately severe sensorineural hearing loss.

Results

Results showed that wearing a face mask affected word recognition and that this effect was greater for listeners with hearing impairment than that observed for listeners with normal hearing sensitivity. The extent of this effect was also dependent on the SNR conditions such that the effect of wearing a face mask was worse in adverse listening conditions.

Conclusions

Overall, this study demonstrated that face mask can disrupt speech intelligibility possibly by degrading some acoustical features which may pose substantial difficulties for those with hearing impairment.

Keywords:

• COVID-19
• Face mask
• Word recognition
• Speech intelligibility
• Hearing loss

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Sondos Hallak for her valuable assistance in participants’ recruitment and data collection. Thanks also to the staff of the Ear Nose and Throat Clinic at the University of Jordan Hospital: Maha Abu-Naser and Alaa Ammar for their help in participants’ recruitment. We are also grateful for our participants who took part in the study.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.