Speech Perception Across The Lifespan by Means of Artificial Intelligence

Hearing loss is one of the most common diseases worldwide. It affects communicative abilities in all age groups. However, it is well known that elderly people suffer more frequently from hearing loss. The aim of this study was to describe the relationship between hearing loss, age, and speech perception. The model that we employed used Random Forest Regression. It was applied to a large clinical data set of 19,801 ears, covering all degrees of hearing loss. It allows the estimation of age-related decline in speech perception in quiet, with the effect of pure-tone hearing loss completely separated. Our results show that speech scores depend on the specific type of hearing loss and age. We found age effects for all degrees of hearing loss. A deterioration in speech perception of up to 25 percentage points across the whole life span was observed. The largest decrease was 10 percentage points per life decade. The decline can be attributed to a distortion component of presbyacusis, which is not measured by pure-tone audiometry.