Comparing the Recognition of Stop Consonants in Persian Between Adults Aged 30-39 and 40-49 Years

Abstract

Background and Objectives Due to the improvement of living conditions in recent decades, there is an important issue called quality of life (QoL). One of the important factors that affect the QoL is the ability to communicate with others. Everyday communication is usually interfered by noise. Consonants play an important role in understanding the meaning of words. Since stop consonants are dependent on the following vowels, they are more vulnerable to the masking effects of noise. The present study aims to evaluate the effect of age, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and concurrent vowels on the recognition of stop consonants in Persian. Subjects and Methods The present cross-sectional study was conducted on 60 adults with normal hearing in two age groups of 30-39 and 40-49 years. After the auditory and speech assessments, the recognition of stop consonants in the form of consonant-vowel-consonant syllables and in the presence of babble noise at three SNRs was compared between two age groups. Results The difference in the recognition score of stop consonants was significant between two age groups at the SNRs of 0, -5, and -10. There was also a significant difference between the two age groups regarding the recognition of stop consonants in the presence of some vowels at three SNRs. Conclusion With increasing age, the recognition ability of stop consonants in the presence of babble noises decreases. Increasing noise also reduces the recognition of stop consonants, especially those with some vowels.