Assessing speech intelligibility in children with hearing loss: toward revitalizing a valuable clinical tool

Newborn hearing screening, early intervention programs, and advancements in cochlear implant and hearing aid technology have greatly increased opportunities for children with hearing loss to become intelligible talkers. Optimizing speech intelligibility requires that progress be monitored closely. Although direct assessment of intelligibility has been a cumbersome undertaking, advancements in digital recording technology and expanded strategies for recruiting listener-judges can make this tool much more practical in contemporary school and clinical settings.

The main purposes of this tutorial are to present a rationale for assessing children's connected speech intelligibility, review important uses for intelligibility scores, and describe time-efficient ways to estimate how well children's connected speech can be understood. This information is offered to encourage routine assessment of connected speech intelligibility in preschool and school-age children with hearing loss.