Aging Impacts Speech-In-Noise Recognition Differently For Nonnative And Native Listeners

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore potential differences in suprathreshold auditory function among native and nonnative speakers of English as a function of age. Method: Retrospective analyses were performed on three large datasets containing suprathreshold auditory tasks completed by 5572 participants who were self-identified native and nonnative speakers of English between the ages of 18–65, including a binaural tone detection task, a digit identification task, and a sentence recognition task. Results: The analyses show a significant interaction between increasing age and participant group on tasks involving speech-based stimuli (digit strings, sentences) but not on the binaural tone detection task. For both speech tasks, differences in speech recognition emerged between groups during early adulthood and increasing age had a more negative impact on word recognition for nonnative compared to native participants. Age-related declines in performance were 2.9 times faster for digit strings and 3.3 times faster for sentences for nonnative participants compared to native participants. Conclusions: This set of analyses extends the existing literature by examining interactions between aging and language background in several auditory domains in a cohort of adults spanning young adulthood through middle age. The finding that older nonnative English speakers in this age cohort may have greater than expected deficits on speech-in-noise perception may have clinical implications on how these individuals should be diagnosed and treated for hearing difficulties.