| Abstrakt: |
The decline of hearing for audiometric tones is now well-established. Recent published reports show that older persons have greater difFiculty in understanding speech than young persons, even when there is minimal audiometric loss. Our studies indicate that, although only small age changes in hearing for speech can be demonstrated in favorable listening situations (free of distortions or competing noises or speech), relative performance under more difficult listening conditions declines, with advancing age, often dramatically. The effects of such changes have apparently been causing considerably greater communication problems for middle-aged and older persons, in daily life, than we have heretofore recognized. A re-evaluation of the acoustics of common listening situations, both “face-to-face” and through devices such as the telephone and the radio, is in order. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER] |
