Aging and Hearing Loss :: Cognitive Geriatrics Essays

Aging and Hearing Loss Hearing loss is frequently overlooked because our hearing is an invisible sense that is always expected to be in action. Yet, there are people everywhere that suffer from the personal effects of hearing loss. It is important to study and understand all aspects of the umpteen antithetical types and reasons for hearing loss. The loss of this particular sense bed be socially debilitating. It can affect the talk skills of the person, not only in receiving information, hardly also in giving the correct response. This paper focuses primarily on hearing loss in the elderly. One thing that affects older individuals communication is the difficulty they often experience when recognizing time vapid speech. Time compressed speech involves fast and unclear conversational speech. Many older listeners can detect the sound of the speech being spoken, but it is still unclear (Pichora-Fuller, 2000). In order to helper with diagnosis and rehabilitation, we need to unders tand why speech is unclear even when it is audible. The answer to that question would also help in the development of hearing aids and other communication devices. Also, as we come to understand the reasoning behind this question and as we ferment more knowledgeable about what older adults can and cannot hear, we can interrupt accommodate them in our day to day interactions.There are many approaches to the explanation of the elderlys difficulty with rapid speech. Researchers point to a decline in treat speed, a decline in processing brief acoustic cues (Gordon-Salant & Fitzgibbons, 2001), an age-related decline of secular processing in general (Gordon-Salant & Fitzgibbons, 1999 Vaughan & Letowski, 1997), the fact that both(prenominal) visual and auditory perception change with age (Helfer, 1998), an interference of mechanically skillful function of the ear, thinkable sensorineural hearing loss due to ravish to receptors over time (Scheuerle, 2000), or a decline in the proces sing of sounds in midbrain (Ochert, 2000). Each one of these could be a possible explanation however it is often a combination of several of these create a perceptual difficulty in the individual.Helfer (1998) recognized the slowing of our temporal perceptual processes with increasing age. He suggested that this leads to auditory deformity, especially in the congressman of time compressed speech. Speech comprehension requires rapid processing of stimuli that is not always completed in time-compressed speech because of the shortening of phonemes and a falling off in pauses. Helfer went a step further by taking into bank bill that hearing is not just auditory but it is also visual, in that we use cues like looking at the persons mouth or facial nerve expression while having a conversation.