Effects of Word Recognition Score as a Function of Auditory Training Terms for Elderly Hearing Impaired with Hearing Aid

Abstract

Although a use of hearing aids improves speech audibility, it is known that elderly hearing-impaired listeners often exhibit difficulty understanding speech in background noise. The purpose of this study was to examine a short-term (8-week) auditory training in word-recognition performance of 24 old hearing aid users. Twelve aged listeners (M=76.2 yrs) participated as auditory training group (ATG), and other twelve old listeners (M=74.0 yrs) served as non-training group (NTG). The ATG received forty-minute auditory training twice a week across the entire 8 weeks of training. During the training, the target monosyllabic words (Korean monosyllabic words) were presented in both open-set and closed-set aided conditions. All the words were presented at the most comfortable level of each participant with four different signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs of -5, 0, +5, +10 dB). To check the training benefit, word-recognition performance of ATG was tested after 1-, 4-, 8-week trainings. Results showed that word recognition performance of NTG did not improve as expected. Word recognition score of ATG was, however, significantly increased after 8-week training. Even though 4-week training results revealed a tendency of increment in word-recognition performance, a positive change after 4-week training was not significant. The amount of improvement after 8-week auditory training was the greatest at +10 dB SNR and the least at -5 dB SNR. The results indicate that the short-term (8-week) auditory training would be beneficial for old listeners to recognize speech in the background noise yet the training effect would depend on the SNRs. Therefore, at least 8 weeks of training in various listening conditions should be considered for elderly hearing aid users who want training benefit in daily listening and communication. KEY WORDS：Auditory training·Elderly hearing impaired·Hearing aid·Signal-to-noise (SNR)·Word recognition score.