Comments on "Speech Understanding and Aging"

The hypothesis advanced by the CHABA Working Group on Speech Understanding and Aging [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 83, 859-895 (1986)] that the systematic decline in speech understanding with age might be explained by concomitant decline in extra-auditory cognitive factors was tested by examining speech audiometric findings in patients with dementia. The fact that performance was consistent with normal central auditory function in 12 of 23 such patients, in spite of deficits in immediate memory for spoken material, tolerance of distraction, mental tracking and sequencing, cognitive flexibility, and set shifting argues against the hypothesis that speech understanding deficits in the elderly can be explained as the simple consequence of cognitive decline.