Building on the Academic Legacy of Pat Stelmachowicz and other Pioneers in Developmental Psychoacoustics and Pediatric Audiology: The Children's English/Spanish Speech Recognition Test (ChEgSS)

Abstract

Basic research investigating auditory development often has implications for clinical diagnosis and treatment of hearing loss in children, but it can be challenging to translate those findings into practice. Meeting that challenge was a guiding principle of Pat Stelmachowicz's research and mentorship. Her example inspired many of us to pursue translational research and motivated the recent development of the Children's English/Spanish Speech Recognition Test (ChEgSS). This test evaluates word recognition in noise or two-talker speech, with target and masker speech produced in either English or Spanish. The test uses recorded materials and a forced-choice response, so the tester need not be fluent in the test language. ChEgSS provides a clinical measure of masked speech recognition outcomes for children who speak English, Spanish, or both, including estimates of performance in noise and two-talker speech, with the goal of maximizing speech and hearing outcomes for children with hearing loss. This article highlights several of Pat's many contributions to pediatric hearing research and describes the motivation and development of ChEgSS.

Development of the Children’s English and Spanish Speech Recognition Test: Psychometric Properties, Feasibility, Reliability, and Normative Data

“…The Children's English and Spanish Speech Recognition (ChEgSS 1 ) test was developed to provide audiologists with a reliable and efficient clinical tool for assessing children's masked-speech recognition, regardless of whether they speak Spanish, English, or both Spanish and English (Leibold et al 2023). Target stimuli are words familiar to young children in both languages, and maskers are either speech-shaped noise or competing speech.…”