Abstract
PURPOSE: To investigate complaints of difficulty understanding speech in the presence of noise in subjects without hearing loss and their performance on a speech-in-noise test. METHODS: Thirty-nine subjects aged 18 to 59 years and 11 months were divided into four groups according to their decade of life. They underwent audiometry, tympanometry, auditory processing tests, the Mini-Mental State Examination, a self-report on auditory perception combined with the Amsterdam Inventory for Auditory Disability and Handicap (Pt-AIADH), and a sentence test in silence and in noise. RESULTS: All groups scored high on the Pt-AIADH domains, with the highest average score obtained for the noise intelligibility domain. There were differences between G18 vs. G40, G18 vs. G50, and G30 vs. G50 for auditory self-perception in noise intelligibility, and differences between the youngest and all other groups on the speech-in-noise test in particular, with a lower signal-to-noise ratio for older adults. We also identified a moderate and significant correlation between intelligibility in noise and the speech-in-noise test. CONCLUSION: Normal hearers of all age groups complained of intelligibility in noise. We found that the higher an individual's auditory difficulty in this domain, the worse their performance on the speech-in-noise test; this is especially true for middle-aged adults.