title: Speech perception in noise for bilingual listeners with normal hearing.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this study was to determine if speech-in-noise ability, as measured by SNR-50 and SNR loss in bilingual Spanish listeners with normal hearing, was affected by test difficulty.
  
  
  METHODS
  Quasi-experimental, non-randomized intervention study.
  
  
  METHODS
  Two groups of adult listeners participated: monolingual English listeners with normal hearing (N = 12) and bilingual Spanish listeners with normal hearing who were proficient in English (N = 10). The quick speech-in-noise (QuickSIN), the Bamford-Kowal-Bench speech-in-noise (BKB-SIN), and the words-in-noise (WIN) tests were used to assess signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) loss and SNR-50 for both groups.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Despite the fact that the bilinguals had normal hearing and were proficient in English, each of the speech-in-noise tests evaluated indicated the Spanish listeners had measurable SNR loss and higher than normal SNR-50s. Performance on the BKB-SIN was best for both groups, indicating test difficulty had a significant impact on speech perception in noise.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Bilingual Spanish listeners with normal hearing exhibited a mild SNR loss comparable to that observed for a person with hearing loss. This decreased performance in noise requires an improved SNR for this population to reach a comparable level of comprehension to their monolingual English counterparts.
authors.affiliation: a School of Communication Sciences and Disorders , The University of Memphis , USA.
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lucks Mendel
authors.affiliation: a School of Communication Sciences and Disorders , The University of Memphis , USA.
authors.forename: Hannah
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Widner
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019303:Multilingualism; D009622:Noise; D013067:Speech Perception; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: SNR-50; Speech perception in noise; bilingual; monolingual; signal-to-noise ratio; signal-to-noise ratio loss