Communication in Complex Situations: The Combined Influence of Dysarthria and Sensorineural Hearing Loss on Speech Perception in Everyday Noisy Environments

The results highlight the substantial intelligibility burden placed upon a communication dyad consisting of a speaker with dysarthria and a listener with hearing loss, when background noise is present. Given the etiologies of dysarthria and hearing loss, and presence of noise in many everyday communication environments, this scenario is not uncommon. As such, these results are an important first step toward understanding the challenges experienced when communication disorders interact. The finding that noise reduction techniques can mitigate much of the noise burden provides a promising future direction for research that seeks to manage communication with two clinical populations.