Neural auditory encoding and performance in speech-in-noise perception: a pilot study.

The sample was small, with 28 analysed participants, so the findings are preliminary. The participants were young undergraduate and graduate students with normal hearing and adequate mental status, so the results do not show what happens in patients with hearing loss, cognitive impairment, or older age. No normative reference values were available for the Portuguese Sentence Lists test, so the study could not determine whether the observed speech-in-noise scores were typical or impaired. The design was observational and cross-sectional, so the reported relationships are associations rather than proof that frequency-following response measures cause or predict speech-in-noise difficulty. Five participants were excluded because recordings had too many artifacts from power line interference. The sample was limited to native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese, so the findings should not be directly extrapolated to speakers of other languages.

The authors declared no financial support.

Do not conclude that frequency-following response testing can diagnose speech-in-noise difficulty in patients. The study was a small pilot with 28 young adults with normal hearing, and no normative reference values were available for the speech-in-noise test.