The Effects of Auditory–Visual Vowel Identification Training on Speech Recognition Under Difficult Listening Conditions

Abstract

The effective use of visual cues to speech provides benefit for adults with normal hearing in noisy environments and for adults with hearing loss in everyday communication. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a computer-based, auditory-visual vowel identification training program on sentence recognition under difficult listening conditions. Normal-hearing adults were trained and tested under auditory-visual conditions, in noise designed to simulate the effects of a hearing loss. After initial tests of vowel, word, and sentence recognition, 1 group of participants received training on identification of 10 American English vowels in CVC context. Another group of participants received no training. All participants were then retested on vowel, word, and sentence recognition. Improvements were seen for trained compared with untrained participants, in auditory-visual speech recognition under difficult listening conditions, for vowels in monosyllables and key words in sentences. Results from this study suggest benefit may be gained from this computer-based, auditory-visual vowel identification training method.