evaluation of speech perception in noise in kurd-persian bilinguals

Background and aim: in most everyday sett-ings, speech is heard in the presence of competing sounds and speech perception in noise is affected by various factors, including cognitive factors. in this regard, bilingualism is a phenomenon that changes cognitive and behavioral processes as well as the nervous system. this study aimed to evaluate speech perception in noise and compare differences in kurd-persian bilinguals versus persian monolinguals. methods: this descriptive-analytic study was performed on 92 students with normal hearing, 46 of whom were bilingual kurd-persian with a mean (sd) age of 22.73 (1.92) years, and 46 other persian monolinguals with a mean (sd) age of 22.71 (2.28) years. they were examined by consonant-vowel in noise (cv in noise) test and quick speech in noise (q-sin) test. the obtained data were analyzed by spss 21. results: the comparison of the results showed differences in both tests between bilingual and monolingual subjects. in both groups, the reduction of signal-to-noise ratio led to lower scores, but decrease in cv in noise test in bilinguals was less than monolinguals (p < 0.001) and in the q-sin test, the drop in bilinguals’ score was more than monolinguals (p = 0.002). conclusion: kurd-persian bilinguals had a bet-ter performance in cv in noise test but had a worse performance in q-sin test than persian monolinguals.