Danish reading span data from 283 hearing-aid users, including a sub-group analysis of their relationship to speech-in-noise performance

Eline Borch Petersen, Thomas Lunner, Martin D. Vestergaard, Elisabet Sundewall Thorén

This study provides descriptive statistics of the Danish reading span (RS) test for hearing-impaired adults. The combined effect of hearing loss, RS score, and age on speech-in-noise performance in different spatial settings was evaluated in a subset of participants. Data from published and unpublished studies were re-analysed. Data regarding speech-in-noise performance with co-located or spatially separated sound sources were available for a subset of participants. RS scores from 283 hearing-impaired participants were extracted from past studies, and 239 of these participants had completed a speech-in-noise test. RS scores (mean = 41.91%, standard deviation = 11.29%) were related to age (p <0.01), but not pure-tone average (PTA) (p = 0.29). Speech-in-noise performance for co-located sound sources was related to PTA and RS score (both p < 0.01, adjusted R-squared = 0.226). Performance for spatially separated sounds was related to PTA (p < 0.01, adjusted R-squared = 0.10) but not RS score (p = 0.484). We found no differences between the standardized coefficients of the two regression models. The distribution of RS scores indicated a high test difficulty. We found that age should be controlled when RS scores are compared across populations. The experimental setup of the speech-in-noise test may influence the relationship between performance and RS score.