Understanding the speech-understanding problems of older adults.

PURPOSE

The purpose of this article was to review recent research from our laboratory on the speech-understanding problems of older adults.

METHOD

The method involved a narrative review of previously reported data from our laboratory.

CONCLUSION

To date, the results from most of our studies have indicated that peripheral and cognitive factors are the primary contributors to the speech-understanding problems of older adults, with the relative mix of these 2 factors changing for unaided (primarily peripheral) and aided (primarily cognitive) listening conditions.