Cochlear dysfunction in "normal-hearing" patients with history of noise exposure.

Cochlear integrity was assessed in patients with normal hearing but history of noise exposure by means of aural-overload measurements and discrimination of high-frequency words in noise. Results show that previously noise-exposed subjects exhibit statistically poorer discrimination than nonexposed subjects. Correlation studies between speech discrimination and aural-overload threshold were also indicative of cochlear damage in the noise-exposed subjects.