ACCURACY OF SPEECH-INTELLIGIBILITY INDEX PREDICTIONS FOR NOISE-MASKEDYOUNG LISTENERS WITH NORMAL-HEARING AND FOR ELDERLY LISTENERS WITH HEARING IMPAIRMENT

This study examined whether the accuracy of Speech Intelligibility Ind ex (SII) predictions is affected by subject age when between-groups au ditory sensitivity differences are controlled. SII predictive accuracy was assessed for elderly listeners with hearing impairment (EHI) and for young noise-masked listeners with normal hearing (NMN). SII predic tive accuracy was poorer for the EHI subjects than for the NMN subject s across a range of test conditions and stimuli. Speech test redundanc y, speech presentation level, signal-to-babble ratio, and babble level also affected SII predictive accuracy. The results suggest that the s peech recognition difficulties experienced in noise by elderly listene rs do not result solely from reduced auditory sensitivity.