Scaling and transcription measures of intelligibility for populations with disordered speech

Although Samar and Metz (1988) have addressed significant issues regarding the assessment of the intelligibility of hearing-impaired talkers, we cannot agree with their interpretation of their findings. Because the transcription and rating-scale measures were performed on different types of speech samples, the two sets of scores cannot be compared. Moreover, transcription and scaling measures may provide fundamentally different estimates of speech performance. Investigators should select which measure to use after considering the appropriate construct validity and the purpose of the measurement.