Speech-in-Noise Tests for Multilingual Hearing Screening and Diagnostics1

Abstract

To date, several complementary tests for screening and diagnostics have been developed in several languages. Adhering to the HearCom standards, the tests are highly comparable across languages. For the Matrix Test, equal syntax and linguistic complexity were maintained across languages due to common methodological standards.

Development and validation of a smartphone-based digits-in-noise hearing test in South African English

“…Various studies indicate that participants who speak English as a second language perform worse on competing signal speech tests compared to native-English speakers (Tabri et al, 2011;van Wijngaarden et al, 2002;Zokoll et al, 2013), although the effect of non-nativeness on digit-triplet recognition in noise is small (Kaandorp et al, 2015). It is therefore important that different norms should be investigated for the South African English digit-in-noise hearing test as South Africa consists of a multilingual population.…”

“…Potential factors that could influence the performance of English additional language speakers on the hearing test may include auditory memory, cognition and the linguistic complexity of test material (van Wijngaarden et al, 2002;Zokoll et al, 2013). Smits et al (2013) however concluded that the digits-in-noise test depend minimally on top-down processing (e.g.…”

The effects of dosage and duration of auditory training for older adults with hearing impairment

“…This sentence format, now referred to as the Matrix Test, is available for speech perception testing in a variety of languages. 12 Sets of 250 naturally produced "Hagerman" sentences have been recorded by our laboratory by four talkers (two male and two female). Pilot testing using open-set recognition was completed for four subjects to establish performance-versus-signal-to-noise-ratio functions for these new materials.…”

International Collegium of Rehabilitative Audiology (ICRA) recommendations for the construction of multilingual speech tests

“…The digit triplet test originally proposed by Smits and colleagues in Dutch (Smits et al,2004) has meanwhile been produced in about 15 languages, such as, e.g., British English, American English, German, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin, Polish, Russian, and Spanish (see Zokoll et al 2012Zokoll et al , 2013 for a comprehensive review). It has primarily been designed for use as a screening test using a telephone: A string of three digits is presented together with a background noise to the listener who has to press the appropriate digits on the telephone keypad as a response.…”

“…The guidelines primarily concern the digit triplets test (as prototype for a screening test, see below) and the matrix test (as prototype for an audiologic diagnostic test for professional use, see below) but may also be used for other test designs. They complement the ISO 8253-3:2012 standard "Acoustics-Audiometric test methods -Part 3: Speech audiometry" by considering in more detail the steps necessary for developing a specific test in any new language.The digit triplet test originally proposed by Smits and colleagues in Dutch (Smits et al,2004) has meanwhile been produced in about 15 languages, such as, e.g., British English, American English, German, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin, Polish, Russian, and Spanish (see Zokoll et al 2012Zokoll et al , 2013 for a comprehensive review). It has primarily been designed for use as a screening test using a telephone: A string of three digits is presented together with a background noise to the listener who has to press the appropriate digits on the telephone keypad as a response.…”