title: Nonverbal sensitivity of normal-hearing and hearing-impaired older adults.
abstract: The study compared the nonverbal decoding abilities of normal-hearing and hard-of-hearing older adults using the Profile of Nonverbal Sensitivity (PONS). The PONS test allowed the measurement of subjects' decoding accuracy for a variety of nonverbal cues presented under two auditory, three visual, and six audiovisual conditions. Nonverbal perceptual scores were lower for the hearing-impaired group under all presentation conditions. Perception of prosodic features of speech by hearing-impaired subjects was significantly related to low-frequency hearing sensitivity. Between-group differences in the decoding of visually transmitted nonverbal cues varied across visual presentation conditions. Results are compared to past deaf studies and related to processing strategies used by normal-hearing and hearing-impaired persons.
authors.affiliation: Department of Communicative Disorders, University of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette.
authors.forename: T G
authors.initials: TG
authors.lastname: Rigo
authors.forename: D A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Lieberman
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D003463:Cues; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006319:Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009633:Nonverbal Communication; D013067:Speech Perception; D014796:Visual Perception