Speech Audiometry

Question 1

What are some internal factors that may affect speech perception testing?

Answer 1

• Developmental age
• Receptive vocabulary
• Language competency
• Cognitive abilities

Question 2

What are some external factors that may affect speech perception testing?

Answer 2

• Designation of appropriate response task
• Effective reinforcement
• Controlling memory load inherent in the task

Question 3

What are some other factors that may affect speech perception testing?

Answer 3

• Results may be more reflective of child’s interest and motivation for the task than actual recognition abilities
• Many children are too shy to speak in the test room environment
• Articulation difficulties (try picture pointing)

Question 4

Describe the PBK word lists.

Answer 4

• Phonetically balanced word lists developed as Haskins’s master’s thesis
• Open set test
• Based on the vocabulary of kindergarten children
• NH preschoolers (~3.5) scored substantially lower than older children
• Words may be too difficult for children with limited vocab (i.e. very young, profoundly deaf)

Question 5

Describe the WIPI word list.

Answer 5

• Word Intelligibility by Picture Identification
• Takes into consideration children with restricted vocabularies who cannot read
• 25 picture plates of 6 items/plate (closed set test)
  
  • 4 of the pictures have words that rhyme, other 2 are distractors
• Appropriate for receptive vocab of 4 years+
• Suitable for children with moderate HL from ages 5-6 and severe HL ages 7-8

Question 6

Describe the NU-CHIPS word list.

Answer 6

• Northwestern University Children’s Perception of Speech Test
• 50 monosyllabic words that should be in the vocab of HL children as young as 3
• Closed set of 4, picture pointing responses
• Children with HL and receptive language of at least 2.5 should be familiar with the words/pictures
• Test represents most commonly-occurring phonemes in English (except initial /r/)

Question 7

Describe the LNT and MLNT.

Answer 7

• Lexical Neighborhood Test, Multisyllabic Lexical Neighborhood Test
• Lexical characteristics have been shown to affect accuracy of spoken word recognition in NH listeners
• “Lexical neighbors”: phonetically similar words that differ by 1 phoneme form a target word
  
  • “Easy” words occur frequently and have few lexical neighbors
  • “Hard” words occur less frequently
• Wanted to pick words within vocabulary of children with profound HL

Question 8

How could an AuD assess an individual with limited word recognition abilities?

Answer 8

• Tests for pre- and post-CI speech recognition skills
• Tests for children with severe to profound HL and very poor word recognition scores

EXAMPLES

• Monosyllabic, Trochee, Spondee (MTS) Test
• Glendonald Auditory Screening Procedure
• Early Speech Perception (ESP) Test
• Minimal Auditory Capabilities (MAC) Battery

Question 9

What is the difference between LNT vs. MLNT?

Answer 9

LNT
-2 “easy” lists and 2 “hard” lists

MLNT
-1 “easy” list and 1 “hard” list

BOTH

• Open set
• Scored as % correct for both words and phonemes
• CI users performed better in “easy” lists than “hard” lists

Question 10

What is the Monosyllabic, Trochee, Spondee (MTS) Test?

Answer 10

• Trochee: 2-syllable word with more stress on the first syllable (i.e. answer)
• Picture-pointing to 2 presentations of 12 pictured words (4 of each)
• Score for correct stress pattern and for correct word

Question 11

What is the Glendonald Auditory Screening Procedure?

Answer 11

• Closed-set test of 12 words similar to MTS: 3 monosyllables, 3 trochees, 3 spondees, 3 polysyllables
• 10 common everyday sentences
• Phoneme detection task

Question 12

What is the Early Speech Perception (ESP) Test?

Answer 12

• Closed set test with 3 sections:
  
  1. Pattern perception subtest
  2. 12-item spondee identification test (each word features different vowel sound)
  3. 12-item monosyllabic word identification test
• Can reduce verbal demand by making task 4-choice
• Skill categories:
  
  • No pattern perception
  • Consistent pattern perception
  • Inconsistent word identification
  • Open set word identification

Question 13

What is the Minimal Auditory Capabilities (MAC) Battery?

Answer 13

• 13 auditory tests and 1 speechreading test (both open and closed set)
• Evaluates:
  - Phonemic discrimination
  - Sentence identification
  - Suprasegmental features
  - Environmental sounds
  - Visual enhancement (w/ and w/o amplification)