A "Buildup" of Speech Intelligibility in Listeners With Normal Hearing and Hearing Loss.
Virginia Best, Jayaganesh Swaminathan, Norbert Kopčo and 2 others
PMID 30353783WHAT IT FOUND
The improvement in identifying target digits was similar for normal-hearing adults and for hearing-loss adults who received individualized amplification.
Listeners improved from the first to the second digit in a five-talker mixture, but hearing-loss listeners made more errors from competing talkers.
Key findings
01Performance improved from the first digit to the second digit for all sequence lengths, and from the second digit to the third digit for three- and four-digit sequences.
02The improvement over time was similar in normal-hearing adults and in hearing-loss adults who received individualized amplification.
03Among hearing-loss listeners, who received individualized amplification, masker errors were more common and correlated with pure-tone average, but the reduction in masker errors over time was not significantly correlated with pure-tone average.
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How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only 16 young adults took part, with eight in each group. Hearing-loss severity varied from 19 to 68 dB HL, and performance varied widely, which likely reduced the chance of detecting a group difference. The task used recorded digits, simulated locations, and headphones, so it may not match everyday conversation. Only young adults were tested, so the study cannot separate hearing-loss effects from age effects. One normal-hearing participant was the first author, but the key results did not change when this person was excluded.
Declared interests
The funding statement names VEGA, EU H2020-MSCA-RISE-2015, and the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. The supplied text does not state author conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that hearing loss has no effect on speech-in-noise. The improvement over time was similar across groups, but hearing-loss listeners, who received individualized amplification, made more errors from competing talkers, and the overall group difference did not reach the study's threshold. The sample had only 16 young adults.