Reliability of the TIP and DIP speech-hearing tests for children

The reliability of SRT and speech intelligibility tests has been studied on adults. Reliability estimates for SRT are between .60 and .90, with standard error estimates from 1.5 to over five dB. For speech intelligibility tests the reliability estimates range from .50 to 90, with standard error of estimates from 2.5% to over 10%. Little has been reported on test reliability with children. For this study the TIP and DIP tests, for threshold and discrimination, respectively, were given to 295 normal and 138 hypacusic children three through twelve years of age. Subjects were retested within one week. TIP test-retest reliability was .72 for normals, and .89 to .99 for hypacusics. DIP test-retest reliability was .46 to .51 for normals and .60 to .93 for hypacusics. Standard error of estimate was about 3 dB for TIP, and 10% for DIP. These values are about the same as the reliability values for adults.