Using the threshold equalizing noise (TEN) test, 49 subjects with at least two pure-tone
thresholds per ear greater than 50 dB HL and none greater than 80 dB HL were evaluated
for the presence or absence of dead regions. The purpose of this study was to (1)
assess the prevalence of cochlear dead regions in this clinical population, (2) measure
whether listeners with dead regions performed differently than listeners without dead
regions on a speech intelligibility in noise test, and (3) determine whether cochlear
dead regions are associated with reduced subjective hearing aid performance. The results
showed that (1) twenty-nine percent of the subjects tested positive for dead regions,
(2) listeners with dead regions had poorer sentence understanding in noise than listeners
without dead regions and (3) listeners with dead regions perceived poorer subjective
hearing aid performance in listening environments with reverberation or background
noise as compared to those without dead regions.
Key Words
Cochlear dead regions - hearing aid performance - speech intelligibility
