Speech Intelligibility Enhancement in Elderly with High-Frequency Hearing Loss Through Visual Speech Perception

Abstract

Background: Pathological and physiological disabilities of human auditory receptors reduce speech intelligibility under hearing loss (HL) at high frequencies. Objectives: The objective of the study is to investigate the speech-intelligibility-enhancement (SIE) in elderly with high-frequency HL (HFHL) through visual-speech-perception (VSP). The hypothesis is that the VSP of spondee words (two-syllable words with equal stress on both syllables) is properly recognized and reproduced with HFHL. Also; to decide the statistical relevance of the precise significant difference in speech discrimination (SD) with VSP on the subjected ear. Methods: Observational and descriptive studies of SIE with VSP on 12 elderly listeners (24 clear ears; without wax impaction) with progressive and bilateral HFHL were examined. The entire experimental records were checked for distribution with normal (Gaussian) using the Shapiro–Wilk's and paired Student's t-test (parametric test) had the 5% (0.05) significance level (α). Results: We analyzed, improved, and better performance in SIE with HFHL through VSP. The statistical P (probability) measure was calculated nothing, i.e., 0 (P < 0.05). Therefore, investigators strongly and carefully discarded the null hypothesis consideration. There was some significant value of statistical variation also exists with VSP. Moreover, with the help of the confidence-interval analysis, the same conclusion was achieved. Conclusions: In this study, it is concluded that the elderly-individuals of this experiment, whose mother tongue and official language is Hindi and English, respectively, they demonstrate the SIE with HFHL through VSP. This investigation also helps to improve the hearing sensitivity to some extent with VSP.