A Test to Measure Subjective and Objective Speech Intelligibility

Measurement of hearing aid outcome is particularly difficult because there are numerous dimensions to consider (e.g., performance, satisfaction, benefit). Often there are discrepancies between scores in these dimensions. It is difficult to reconcile these discrepancies because the materials and formats used to measure each dimension are so very different. We report data obtained with an outcome measure that examines both objective and subjective dimensions with the same test format and materials and gives results in the same unit of measurement (signal-to-noise ratio). Two variables are measured: a “performance” speech reception threshold and a “perceptual” speech reception threshold. The signal-to-noise ratio difference between these is computed to determine the perceptual-performance discrepancy (PPDIS). The results showed that, on average, 48 percent of the variance in subjective ratings of a hearing aid could be explained by a combination of the performance speech reception threshold and the PPDIS. These findings suggest that the measure is potentially a valuable clinical tool.

Key Words

Hearing aid satisfaction - objective - speech intelligibility - subjective