Consonant recognition and confusion patterns among elderly hearing-impaired subjects

This study investigated whether unique consonant recognition and confusion patterns are associated with hearing loss among elderly listeners. Subjects were all greater than 65 years, and had normal hearing, or gradually or sharply sloping sensorineural hearing losses. Recognition of 19 consonants, paired with each of three vowels in a CV format, was assessed at two speech levels in a background of babble (+6 dB signal-to-babble ratio). Analyses of percent correct scores for overall nonsense syllable performance and for consonants according to place, manner, and voicing categories generally revealed better performance by the normal-hearing subjects than by the hearing-impaired subjects. However, individual differences scaling analysis of consonant confusions failed to retrieve speech perception patterns that were unique to listener group. These results tentatively suggest that the presence and configuration of hearing loss among elderly listeners may affect the level of performance but not the specific pattern of performance.