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Game-based training helps older adults follow speech in noisy settings

ByHearology Publishing | Date: Tue Jan 20 2026

An older gentleman with a white beard and glasses, wearing a cap, is clapping his hands while sitting in a crowd at an outdoor event.

Short, gamified auditory–cognitive training helped older adults with hearing loss better understand speech in noisy environments, suggesting brief game-like exercises can boost real-world listening.


A four-week gamified training programme improved older adults’ ability to understand speech in noisy environments, according to a controlled study among German-speaking participants with mild-to-moderate hearing loss. 

The trial enrolled 54 cognitively intact adults with a mean age of 71 and hearing thresholds consistent with mild-to-moderate loss. Participants completed pre-training and post-training assessments and a two-month follow-up. Training was prescribed for at least 20 minutes a day, five days a week.

One group completed an auditory-cognitive training programme designed as a series of adaptive, game-like tasks. The active control group spent the same amount of time on computer-based foreign language learning.


Gains in real-world style listening

Speech-in-noise comprehension was tested using conversational sentences presented against recorded cafeteria noise at three signal-to-noise ratios. Participants answered questions and rated their listening effort after each block.

Those in the auditory-cognitive training group showed significant improvements in comprehension accuracy. The gains were still present at the two-month follow-up. The control group showed no such improvement.

By contrast, performance on a standard clinical speech-in-noise intelligibility test did not change in either group. This suggests the training improved higher-order comprehension rather than basic sensory speech perception.


Clinical relevance and limits

Poor speech-in-noise performance and hearing loss are linked to cognitive decline in large population studies. Against that background, auditory-cognitive training could offer a complementary approach that targets listening strategies and brain processing rather than audibility alone.

But the study does not show whether such training affects long-term cognition or everyday communication outside the laboratory. 


A possible adjunct, not a replacement

Overall, the trial provides evidence that a short, game-based auditory-cognitive programme can improve higher-level speech comprehension in noise for older adults with hearing loss. The results position auditory-cognitive training as a potential adjunct to conventional rehabilitation, but larger and longer studies are needed to test real-world benefits and durability.

“Many people assume that if speech is hard to follow in noise, the problem is purely about volume,” said Abigail Pillay, a Clinical Audiologist at Hearology®. “But we see every day that listening effort, attention and fatigue play a big role. Training that supports the brain’s ability to process sound could be a useful complement to hearing aids for some older adults, particularly in busy, real-world environments.”


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