A comparative analysis of different procedures for measuring speech recognition threshold in quiet

Abstract

In Slovenia, the adapted Freiburg Monosyllabic Word Test (FT-SI) has been used to assess the communication function in an audiology patient. To measure the speech recognition threshold (SRT), the ascending procedure that is applied in FT-SI may be very time consuming. The aim of our study was to compare several adaptive procedures with the FT-SI ascending procedure. Based on the analysis of comprehensibility and commonness of stimuli used in FT-SI, the most appropriate words were selected and used in three adaptive procedures: two variants of a descending procedure, both recommended by the ISO 8523-3 standards for measuring an SRT, and the staircase method. On a normal-hearing sample (N = 36 in test measurement and N = 24 in retest measurement), comparable SRTs were obtained with the adaptive procedures, whereas the FT-SI ascending procedure yielded slightly higher SRTs. When a selected pool of words was used in FT-SI, SRTs became more comparable to the results of the adaptive methods. The study therefore showed that the pool of words used in FT-SI should be revised. Considering relatively short administration time, satisfactory convergent validity, precision and test-retest reliability, the staircase method seems to be the best alternative to the FT-SI ascending procedure.

Keywords

• speech audiometry
• speech recognition threshold
• ISO 8523-3 standards
• psychophysical methods
• adaptive methods