Speech intelligibility rating of cochlear implanted children: inter-rater reliability

Area of Science:

• Audiology
• Speech-Language Pathology
• Pediatric Rehabilitation

Background:

• The Speech Intelligibility Rating (SIR) scale categorizes children's global speech production into five levels.
• Subjectivity in rating can lead to score variations among different assessors.
• Determining the consistency of ratings between different individuals is crucial for scale validity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the inter-rater reliability of the Speech Intelligibility Rating (SIR) scale.
• To ascertain the level of agreement among inexperienced judges when using the SIR scale.
• To validate the SIR scale for consistent application in clinical settings.

Main Methods:

• Inexperienced judges rated video recordings of children with cochlear implants interacting with adults.
• Judges assessed speech intelligibility using the five-category SIR scale.
• Statistical analyses included Kendall's W, Kappa's K, and intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC).

Main Results:

• High agreement was found in the ranking of children's intelligibility (Kendall's W = 0.86-0.98, p < 0.01).
• Significant agreement on category membership was observed (Kappa's K = 0.45-0.68, p < 0.001).
• High consistency and agreement between raters were confirmed by ICC values (ICC(2,1) = 0.80-0.81, ICC(3,1) = 0.82-0.97, all p < 0.001).

Conclusions:

• The Speech Intelligibility Rating (SIR) scale demonstrates strong inter-rater reliability.
• The scale is suitable for confident use by cochlear implant teams.
• The SIR scale effectively monitors the speech intelligibility progress of implanted children.