audiology ch 8

what is speech audiometry?

evaluates how well a person can hear, recognize, and understand speech.

main difference between pure-tone audiometry and speech audiometry?

Pure-tone audiometry tells us the quietest sounds a person can hear, but speech audiometry tells us more about their ability to understand actual spoken language.

what is speech recognition test for?

understanding of what words are being said

speech detection threshold

softest level a person can recognize speech

SRT

speech recognition threshold

most conversation speech is had at BLANK

20-50dB

the speech detection threshold should usually be equal to or slightly better than recognition, within what range?

5-10 dB better

why is speech audiometry important?

good for comparing speech recognition ability between two ears, monitor changes over time, determine weather a pt needs hearing aids or cohlea implant

word recognition score (WRS)

measures how accurately a person recognizes and repeats individual words presented above their hearing threshold(loud).

the word lists are phonemically balanced (PB)

NU-6 and CID W-22

PB

phonemically balanced (single-syllable words)

each word list has BLANK PB words, called a BLANK

50, full-list

most audiologist divide the list in half

half-list, 25 words

two ways to score WRS

whole-word scoring or phoneme scoring

whole-word scoring

the entire word must be correct to receive credit.

ex of whole-word scoring

a patient correctly identifies 40 out of 50 words = 80% WRS.

phoneme scoring

each individual speech sound receives credit.

ex of phoneme scoring

-the target word is CAT but the patient says CAP

-Score = 2 out of 3 phonemes correct.

most comfortable loudness (MCL)

the level at which a patient prefers to listen to speech

uncomfortable loudness level (UCL)

the level at which speech becomes uncomfortably loud, but not painful

at what level is speech testing done?

a level that is softer than the UCL (b/c they would never listen there)

formants

what we use to perceive speech fundamental frequency

speech banana

the general region on an audiogram showing where conversational speech sounds occur.

speech intelligibility index (SII)

how much speech a person can understand

vowels are BLANK and BLANK frequency than consonants

louder, lower frequency

consonant are BLANK and have a BLANK frequency than vowels

softer, higher

if the points on an speech banana are out of range then…

that person is going to miss most of that conversation

count the dots audiogram

measures the percentage of conversational speech that a person can hear

how to use count the dots audiogram

• 100 dots are distributed across the audiogram.

• Each dot represents 1%.

• Count the dots above the patient's hearing-loss line to estimate available speech information