Purpose
to determine which aspects of the audiometric configuration influence speech recognition in ski slop sensorineural hearing loss.
Methods
a survey of hospital records of patients treated at the Hearing Health Care in the period from March to July 2011 was performed selecting individuals above 18 years old and ski slop sensorineural hearing loss from mild to severe degree, with difference between the means of the frequencies of 0.25 to 2 kHz and 3-8 kHz greater than 15 dB HL. The sample of the study consisted of 30 patients (55 ears), 19 men and 11 women, aged between 26 and 91 years. Based on audiological evaluation, tests of speech recognition were correlated with different average hearing thresholds, including frequencies from 0,5 to 4 kHz. Furthermore, the differences in auditory thresholds between octave frequencies was studied and its impact on speech discrimination.
Results
excellent correlation was found between the mean thresholds from 0,5 to 4 kHz with speech discrimination, this correlation being stronger with the inclusion of the frequencies of 3 and 4 kHz in tone average. However, increasing the difference in hearing threshold between octaves of frequencies, which implies a ski slop, did not interfere significantly on tests of speech recognition.
Conclusions
based on the results of this study, we can conclude that the frequencies of 3 kHz and 4 kHz contribute to the speech intelligibility.
Speech Perception; Audiology; Hearing Loss; Audiometry; Speech