Background
Auditory complaints following mild traumatic brain injury are common, but few studies have addressed the role of auditory temporal processing in speech recognition complaints.
Purpose
In this study, deficits understanding speech in a background of speech noise following MTBI were evaluated with the goal of comparing the relative contributions of auditory and non-auditory factors.
Research Design
A matched-groups design was used in which a group of listeners with a history of MTBI were compared to a group matched in age and pure-tone thresholds, as well as a control group of young listeners with normal hearing.
Study Sample
Thirty-three listeners participated in the study, including thirteen in the MTBI group (mean age 46.7 years), eleven in the Matched group (mean age 49 years), and nine in the YNH group (mean age 20.8 years).
Data Collection and Analysis
Speech-in-noise deficits were evaluated using subjective measures as well as monaural word (WIN) and sentence (QuickSIN) tasks, and a binaural spatial release task. Performance on these measures was compared to psychophysical tasks evaluating monaural and binaural temporal fine structure tasks and spectral resolution. Cognitive measures of attention, processing speed, and working memory were evaluated as a possible difference between MTBI and Matched groups contributing to speech-in-noise deficits.
Results
A high proportion of listeners in the MTBI group reported difficulty understanding speech in noise (84%) compared to the Matched group (9.1%), and listeners who reported difficulty were more likely to have abnormal results on objective measures of speech in noise. No significant group differences were found between the MTBI and Matched listeners on any of the measures reported, but the number of abnormal tests differed across groups. Regression analysis revealed that a combination of auditory and auditory processing factors contributed to monaural speech-in-noise scores, but the benefit of spatial separation was related to a combination of working memory and peripheral auditory factors across all listeners in the study.
Conclusions
The results of this study are consistent with previous findings that a subset of listeners with MTBI have objective auditory deficits. Speech-in-noise performance was related to a combination of auditory and non-auditory factors, confirming the important role of audiology in MTBI rehabilitation. Further research is needed to evaluate the prevalence and causal relationship of auditory deficits following MTBI.