Intelligibility of clear and conversational speech of young and elderly talkers

It has been documented that talkers can be trained to produce "clear" speech, which is significantly more intelligible for hearing-impaired listeners. In this study, the ability of both younger and older talkers to produce clear speech after a minimal amount of instruction and practice was investigated. Tape recordings were made with the talkers attempting to produce both conversational-style and also clear-style speech. Elderly patients with sensorineural hearing loss listened to and attempted to repeat these sentence productions. The results indicate that both groups of talkers could effect significant intelligibility improvements despite minimal instruction and practice. Further, the magnitudes of the intelligibility improvements were statistically similar between the two groups of talkers. Instruction in clear speaking techniques is thus advocated as a useful intervention technique for spouses and other family members of elderly patients with hearing loss.