A filtered speech test for an aging population.

A filtered speech test was presented to sixty males and females above the age of sixty years. Thirty of these subjects had complained of, and demonstrated clinically, a high frequency hearing loss for pure-tones. Thirty subjects, who had never complained of a hearing loss, but who nevertheless were found to have mild-to-moderate high frequency hearing losses, were included as a control in the study. The ability to discriminate among phonetically-balanced words where certain frequencies had been filtered out deteriorated with age, although those subjects in the control group performed better than those in the experimental group. However both groups showed poorer ability to discriminate with the right ear, than with the left, or with both ears. The results seemed to indicate a particular retrocochlear involvement in an aging population.