Practice and list effects on the synthetic sentence identification test in young and elderly listeners

A high prevalence of central auditory processing disorders (CAPD) has been reported in the elderly based on scores for the Synthetic Sentence Identification Test (SSI). This study examined practice effects and list differences on the Auditec version of the SSI with an ipsilateral competing message in 30 young and 20 elderly participants. Results for the younger participants suggested that a minimum of one practice list should be used with the SSI, whereas results for the elderly participants suggested that a minimum of three practice lists should be used. The binomial model of A. R. Thornton and M. J. M. Raffin (1978) was suggested for use in determining the required number of lists needed to obtain reliable SSI performance. Significant list differences were found with the Auditec version of the SSI. It was recommended to use only Lists A, C, D, E, G, and I for consistent results across lists. Practice effects and list differences should be accounted for when using the SSI for the assessment of CAPD in elderly and young listeners.