Performance on a nonsense syllable test for normal and hearing-impaired subjects

The Nonsense Syllable Test (NST) developed by Edgerton and Danhauer in 1979 was administered to 22 normal-hearing and 26 hearing-impaired Ss. Tape recordings from Auditec of St. Louis were presented at 5 SLs from 25 to 65 db re: SRT. Responses were transcribed phonetically using both auditory and visual cues and were scored by the phoneme method. Interjudge scorer reliability was high (94%). Performance vs level functions were plotted and analyzed for differences both within and among groups. The NST differentiated between the normals and the hearing-impaired Ss. Percent-correct discrimination scores for the hearing-impaired Ss were about 10 to 15 points poorer than for the normals. The results were favorably compared to the earlier version of the NST and the potential clinical use of this taped version was discussed.