Anticipatory strategy training: implications for the postlingually hearing-impaired adult

The present study was designed to determine if speech recognition performance will improve after subjects prepare for an unfamiliar communication situation as opposed to a familiar one. Forty-five normal-hearing subjects were divided into three groups: one trained using a well-known fairytale, one trained using an obscure fable, and one without training. Post-training, all groups performed similarly when tested on the familiar tale. When test material involved the unfamiliar fable, only the group trained on that material obtained significantly better scores than the other groups. Results support teaching clients that increasing their knowledge of upcoming unfamiliar events can improve subsequent speech recognition.