A Flexible Question-and-Answer Task for Measuring Speech Understanding.
Virginia Best, Timothy Streeter, Elin Roverud and 2 others
PMID 27888257WHAT IT FOUND
A new question-answer speech test performed well in young adults with normal hearing, even with multiple talkers and competing conversations.
It may help assess real-world listening, but it was not tested in patients.
Key findings
01The new question-and-answer task produced performance from near chance to near perfect as the loudness of the target relative to noise changed.
02In the second experiment, accuracy ranged from 73% to 97% correct when questions and answers were embedded among competing conversations.
03Moving the target talker's location unpredictably did not lower accuracy compared with keeping the target talkers in one location.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only 8 young adults with normal hearing were tested in each experiment, so the results do not show how people with hearing loss or hearing aid users would perform. The study did not test patients, did not test hearing aids, and did not report clinical outcomes. In Experiment 2, visual cues showed when and where to listen, so the result may not reflect real conversation without such cues. Reliability was estimated by comparing the first and second halves of the same long session, not by testing people on separate days. Performance varied across question categories, so some content may be easier than others. The paper describes a laboratory task and its feasibility, not a validated clinical assessment.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that this task is a validated clinical test for people with hearing loss. It was tested only in young adults with normal hearing, and the dynamic listening condition used visual cues to indicate when and where to listen.