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Speech recognition

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I know many on this forum have difficulty with speech in noise, me included, but I wonder why my speech recognition is sooo bad (28 & 24%) when I see others with not that much different than mine (see sig.)have much better speech recognition. I am just trying to understand my handicap.
Did I miss a discussion of this somewhere?

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Edited

Your is similar to mine. My word recognition was done at 105 Db. Do you know at what Db your word recognition was measured?

Mine seems to have been done at a high level, not sure why unless it is my sloping loss. I think they normally do the word recognition at 30 or 35 Db above SRT. If yours was done lower than that it might account for lower scores?

Sensorineural hearing loss affects the auditory signal generally in two ways: attenuation (resulting in less intense sounds being inaudible), and distortion (resulting in audible sounds having relatively less clarity than in a normal auditory system). While generally more severe loss on the attenuation side also results in more distortion, there is massive variability in the amount of distortion created, particularly in the moderate to severe loss range. This is because sensorineural hearing loss is often the result of a combination of abnormal function of many different areas of the system (outer hair cells, inner hair cells, other cochlear structures, the auditory nerve, the lower and upper auditory neural pathways, etc) and this combination can cause infinite variability from patient to patient. Loss restricted to predominantly outer hair cell loss tends to have less distortion, while once inner hair cells and neural structures are involved there tends to be a greater distortion aspect to the loss (reflected during testing with poorer performance on word/speech recognition tasks). The amplification and compression aspects of hearing instruments do a good job treating the attenuation aspect to a loss but are limited in overcoming high distortion. The signal-to-noise improving aspects of hearing instruments become all the more vital as distortion is poorer.

All to do with the brain. Two people can have exact same loss but have totally different speech scores.

I’m profoundly deaf but have a way higher speech scores then my friend who only has a moderate loss.

@NaidaUP said:

All to do with the brain. Two people can have exact same loss but have totally different speech scores.

I’m profoundly deaf but have a way higher speech scores then my friend who only has a moderate loss.

Well, a fair amount of time that is absolutely the case, but there are often cochlear differences responsible for the variability as well.

You can increase the soft sounds to a certain level, but I find the very loud sounds especially speech, become distorted. Decreasing helps, but that also seems to create distortion.

Environmental loud sound does not appear distorted though. Probably because there is not as much information, as that needed for speech. Music is the one thing I miss the most. It`s too distorted.

In reply to @Don

@Don said:

Your SRT is similar to mine. My word recognition was done at 105 Db. Do you know at what Db your word recognition was measured?

Mine seems to have been done at a high level, not sure why unless it is my sloping loss. I think they normally do the word recognition at 30 or 35 Db above SRT. If yours was done lower than that it might account for lower scores?

If I am reading the correctly word recognition was at 80db

This is very interesting, my speech recognition is also poor… that’s why over the years I’ve thought myself to read lips …

In reply to @tevz32

@tevz32 said:

If I am reading the audiogram correctly word recognition was at 80db

If that’s the case, that’s only 15 above the quietest speech you can hear so not surprising that you only got about 1/4 of the words correct. Your provider should have tested what level speech is comfortable for you () and where it is uncomfortable (). Generally if you get scores below 80%, you should retest at a higher presentation level and see if the scores improve.

Thanks to everyone who responded. You again added to my understanding of this handicap. I have a 2/28 appointment with the audi and will ask more question, especially the areas mentioned by Audiogal. I have been blessed by participation in this forum.

My left ear I hear louder, I can hear beeps that I cant hear with my right ear at all. I hear sounds much louder in my left ear and when I have my sennheiser set 840 tv headset on I hear the sound of the Tv much louder but!!! I cant understand speech, most speech is distorted to the point I cant carry on a phone conversation with my left ear unless its a man with a lower voice. Even the dial tone sounds different with my left and right ears.
My poor wife, Im getting a cholesteotoma removed from my right ear march 5th. The surgeon is taking the bone out and making my ear canal 80% larger and then rebuilding my inner ear. I cant wear hearing aids for 3 months.
I made an appt before the surgery with the audi I bought my aids from because speech is even more distorted with the hearing aid in than with it out. I have to try and get to a point where I can understand what my wife says at least. If im looking at her I can read her lips.
I just pray that I dont lose my hearing entirely in my right ear after the surgery.

In reply to @tevz32

One thing about hearing loss is that everyone’s is different. You can’t compare your loss to someone else’s and then say why? That’s just the way it is. I have a profound loss in both ears and my speech recognition is in the lower 40’s and declining. So if I compare it to yours my actual hearing is worse, but your speech recognition is worse.

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