Development and evaluation of the Turkish matrix sentence test

Area of Science:

• Audiology
• Speech-language pathology
• Linguistics

Background:

• Accurate speech intelligibility testing is crucial for diagnosing hearing impairments and evaluating interventions.
• Existing speech tests may lack precision or international comparability for the Turkish language.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate the Turkish Matrix Sentence test (TURMatrix) for precise, internationally comparable speech intelligibility assessment.
• To ensure the homogeneity and equivalence of test materials for reliable results.

Main Methods:

• The TURMatrix was constructed using a base matrix of common Turkish words, forming syntactically fixed sentences.
• Test conduction utilized open-set and closed-set response formats, with level adaptations for optimized intelligibility.
• Thirty-eight native Turkish listeners with normal hearing participated in the study.

Main Results:

• Mean speech reception threshold (SRT) and slope were determined for fixed and adaptive measurements.
• Adaptive measurements in open-set and closed-set formats yielded comparable SRTs in noise.
• Individual SRTs in quiet showed a stronger correlation with audiograms than with SRTs in noise.

Conclusions:

• The TURMatrix adheres to European standards for speech testing.
• The TURMatrix provides reliable and precise speech intelligibility measurements in both quiet and noisy conditions for Turkish speakers.