Signal-to-noise threshold with and without hearing aid.
We determined the necessary signal-to-noise threshold for 50% sentence discrimination in 130 patients with sensorineural hearing disorders with and without a hearing aid, as well as the minimum monosyllable discrimination loss without hearing aid. A significant correlation coefficient was found to exist of the signal-to-noise threshold with vs. that without hearing aid (r = 0.61), and between the minimum discrimination loss and the signal-to-noise threshold with hearing aid (r = 0.38). These differences in the correlation coefficient indicate that the impairment of speech perception in noise when using a hearing aid is obviously due to the deterioration of the signal-to-noise threshold induced by the hearing loss rather than to the discrimination loss per se.
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D006310:Hearing Aids / Q000592:standards*; D006319:Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D013067:Speech Perception; D013069:Speech Reception Threshold Test