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Italian Fast Speech Reception Threshold Test: A New Method to Investigate Adult Auditory Impairment in Noise
Italo Cantore1, Ruggero Lapenna2, Walter Di Nardo3
1Otorhinolaryngology Unit, ASL Roma 1 San Filippo Neri Hospital, Rome, Italy.
Introduction:
Purpose of our study was to compare two competing methods of performing bisyllabic word speech audiometry for the detection of the 50% speech reception threshold in noise (SRT50).
Methods:
Classic method is performed submitting multiple word lists at a fixed signal-to-noise ratio. A newer Fast method - Italian Fast Speech Reception Threshold 50 (IFastSRT50) - is performed by means of program software with a single list of bisyllabic words and noise intensity shifting.
Results:
Means comparison between SRT50 Classic and IFastSRT50 shows a slight significant correlation (r = 0.263; p = 0.044) and a wide significant difference: SRT50 Classic = -2.763 dB (SD = 4.1) and IFastSRT50 = -7.803 dB (SD = 2.1) (p < 0.0001). There is a high difference between the test execution time means (SRT50 Classic = 11 min, IFastSRT50 = 2 min; p < 0.0001). The correlation between test results and execution times was higher for SRT50 Classic than IFastSRT50.
Conclusion:
IFastSRT50 test is a reliable method to quickly investigate signal-to-noise ratio needed to obtain 50% of recognition scores with bisyllabic words; it allows less execution time than SRT50 Classic method and can avoid patient fatigue and other limitations of different speech discrimination tests in noise as sentences based ones.
