Hearing aids have improved speech intelligibility but not speech emotion perception in older adults with hearing loss. Hearing loss has also been linked to altered brain responses to emotional non-speech sounds, potentially contributing to the speech emotion perception deficits even under aided listening....
No actionable change — this study shows hearing aids alter brain responses to emotional speech but do not improve emotion recognition ability, so audiologists should not counsel patients to expect improved emotional speech perception from hearing aid use based on this evidence.
This finding challenges the assumption that amplification alone restores full speech-emotion processing, highlighting a gap between neural adaptation and perceptual outcomes that may need targeted rehabilitation strategies.
- 01Hearing aids altered neural (brain) processing of emotional speech in older adults with hearing loss.
- 02Despite changes in brain activity, participants did not improve in identifying emotions from speech.
- 03Study published in Trends in Hearing, a peer-reviewed audiology journal.
- 04Amplification alone appears insufficient to restore emotional speech perception to normal.
- 05Findings suggest rehabilitation beyond hearing aids may be needed for emotional communication deficits.
Hearing aids reshape neural processing of emotional speech in older adults with hearing loss.
studysupportedHearing aids do not improve the ability to perceive speech emotion in older adults with hearing loss.
studysupported- PMID
- 42390100
- DOI
- 10.1177/23312165261465515.
- Journal
- Trends in Hearing
- Publication type
- research_article
- Evidence level
- 2b
- Population
- Older adults with hearing loss
- Intervention
- Hearing aid use
- Comparator
- Unaided listening condition
Primary outcomes
Neural processing of emotional speech (electrophysiological measures); Behavioural perception of speech emotion