Aging and Speech-in-Noise Perception

The objective was investigating the effect of age on speech-in-noise perception (SINP) using word perception score in white noise (WPS in WN). This cross-sectional study was conducted on 76 participants, including 30 elderly (older than 61 years) and 46 young adults (between 14 and 35 years) with normal levels of stress, night sleep and mini-mental states. Audiological evaluations included acoustic immittance testing, pure tone audiometry, determination of speech reception threshold and WPS in WN. Data analysis were performed using Mann–Whitney and Tukey HSD tests. Based on the results of the tests, the participants were divided into three groups: (1) young adults with normal hearing (n = 30), (2) elderly adults with normal hearing (n = 16), (3) elderly adults with mild to moderate high frequency hearing loss (n = 14). In both groups of old adults, the means WPS in WN differences were significant only in the left ears (Pv = 0.008, 0.033, 0.025 for SNR = 0, +5, +10 dB). In the three groups and in the right ears, there were the significant differences between the means of WPS in WN (Pv = 0.002, 0.000, 0.001 for SNR = 0, +5, +10 dB), and also the left ears (Pv = 0.000, 0.002, 0.002 for SNR = 0,+5, +10 dB).There is a relationship between increasing age and decreasing WPS in WN. The deleterious effects of aging on SINP decline are greater than that of hearing loss.