Speech recognition scores related to age and degree of hearing impairment in DFNA2/KCNQ4 and DFNA9/COCH.

Objective: To analyze the relationship between pure-tone hearing threshold and speech recognition performance in DFNA2/KCNQ4 and DFNA9/COCH, 2 types of high-frequency nonsyndromic hearing impairment.

Design: Case series with cross-sectional analysis of phoneme recognition scores related to age and hearing level.

Setting: University hospital.

Patients: Forty-five members of 4 separate families, all carrying 1 of 3 different mutations in the KCNQ4 gene at the DFNA2 locus (1p34); 42 members of 7 separate families, all carrying the same Pro51Ser mutation in the COCH gene at the DFNA9 locus (14q12-q13).

Results: The deterioration of speech recognition dropped to a 90% score at a higher level of hearing impairment (pure-tone-average at 1, 2, and 4 kHz) in DFNA2-affected patients (65 dB) than in DFNA9-affected patients (46 dB).

Conclusion: At similar levels of hearing impairment, DFNA2/KCNQ4-affected patients showed better speech recognition performance than DFNA9/COCH-affected patients.