Concepedia

Abstract

The increasing age of the population forecasts a corresponding increase in the number of people suffering from hearing loss and who therefore have difficulty with speech communication. This article, prepared by the Working Group on Speech Understanding and Aging for the Committee on Hearing, Bioacoustics, and Biomechanics, discusses a number of the factors that act on the elderly listener’s ability to understand speech, including physiological aging, changes in cognitive ability, noisy signals, and sensory aids. Both sensory and perceptual processes are considered.