A comparison of American Speech-Language Hearing Association guidelines for obtaining speech-recognition thresholds

This study compared two approaches for measuring speech-recognition thresholds (SRTs): the ASHA (1979) and ASHA (1988) guidelines. The subjects were 30 veterans with impaired hearing. Contrary to prior reports, the ASHA (1979) approach was found to be slightly less time consuming than the ASHA (1988) approach. The ASHA (1979) approach also yielded slightly better pure tone average (PTA)-SRT agreement than the ASHA (1988) approach for two of three generally accepted measures for comparing these tests; the third measure yielded equivalent results. Although statistically significant, the differences between these guidelines in test time and PTA-SRT agreement were small and are considered to be clinically insignificant.