Digit-Pair Stimuli as a Measure of Speech Reception Thresholds during Hearing Testing in the Paediatric Population within a Multilingual Context

Abstract

Aims: This study aimed to investigate whether digit-pair stimuli offered a more precise measure for Speech Reception Threshold (SRT) testing in the paediatric population, in comparison to the phonetically balanced kindergarten (PBK) list during hearing testing in multilingual contexts. Participants: A sample of 30 English first language speaking participants, aged between 5-7 years was included in the study. All participants were required to have normal hearing sensitivity and age-appropriate speech-language development. Methods: Speech-language development was screened prior to the audiological assessment to ensure normal development. A basic audiological assessment was performed on the participants consisting of otoscopy, tympanometry, pure tone audiometry and SRT testing. Live-voice presentation was used for determination of the SRT scores; and these were than compared to the pure tone average (PTA) scores. Results: Findings from the study have suggested that speech stimuli do show sensitivity to children’s development, and thus ensure a more reliable method of assessing the SRT-PTA relationship. A higher correlation was seen for the SRT-Digit Pairs list (r=0.43) as compared to the SRT-PBK list (r=0.41). Implications: Findings of the current research provide valuable information regarding speech testing in children, with important implications for a multilingual society such as South Africa.