title: Auditory and auditory-visual recognition of clear and conversational speech by older adults.
abstract: Research has shown that speech articulated in a clear manner is easier to understand than conversationally spoken speech in both the auditory-only (A-only) and auditory-visual (AV) domains. Because this research has been conducted using younger adults, it is unknown whether age-related changes in auditory and/or visual processing affect older adults' ability to benefit when a talker speaks clearly. The present study examined how speaking mode (clear vs conversational) and presentation mode (A-only vs AV) influenced nonsense sentence recognition by older listeners. Results showed that neither age nor hearing loss limited the amount of benefit that older adults obtained from a talker speaking clearly. However, age was inversely correlated with identification of AV (but not A-only) conversational speech, even when pure-tone thresholds were controlled statistically.
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication Disorders, University of Massachusetts, Amherst 01003-0410, USA.
authors.forename: K S
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Helfer
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001301:Audiometry, Pure-Tone / Q000379:methods; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D006801:Humans; D008085:Lipreading; D008875:Middle Aged; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*