Speech Recognition in Noise for Adults With Normal Hearing: Age-Normative Performance for AzBio, BKB-SIN, and QuickSIN.

OBJECTIVE

Characterize performance for adults aged 20 to 79 years with normal hearing on tasks of AzBio, Bamford-Kowal-Bench speech-in-noise (BKB-SIN), quick speech-in-noise (QuickSIN), and acoustic Quick Spectral Modulation Detection (QSMD) in the sound field.

SETTING

Cochlear implant (CI) program.

PATIENTS

Eighty-one adults with normal hearing and cognitive function were recruited evenly across four age groups (20-49, 50-59, 60-69, and 70-79 yr).

INTERVENTIONS

Subjects completed AzBio sentence recognition testing in quiet and in five signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs: +10, +5, 0, -5, -10 dB), as well as the BKB-SIN, QuickSIN, and QSMD tasks.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

AzBio, BKB-SIN, QuickSIN, and acoustic QSMD scores were analyzed to characterize typical sound field performance in an older adult population with normal hearing.

RESULTS

AzBio sentence recognition performance approached ceiling for sentences presented at ≥ 0 dB SNR with mean scores ranging from 3.5% at -10 dB SNR to 99% at +10 dB SNR. Mean QuickSIN SNR-50 was -0.02. Mean BKB-SIN SNR-50 was -1.31 dB. Mean acoustic QSMD score was 88%. Performance for all measures decreased with age.

CONCLUSION

Adults with age-normative hearing achieve ceiling-level performance for AzBio sentence recognition at SNRs used for clinical cochlear implant and/or hearing aid testing. Thus, these tasks are not inherently contraindicated for older listeners. Older adults with normal hearing, however, demonstrated greater deficits for speech in noise compared to younger listeners-an effect most pronounced at negative SNRs. Lastly, BKB-SIN data obtained in the sound field replicated previous normative data for only the youngest age group, suggesting that new norms should be considered for older populations.