Development and use of auditory compact discs in auditory evaluation

Two audio compact discs have been developed by the Department of Veterans Affairs for use in the assessment of auditory function. This report focuses on 1) the development of the first compact disc, which contains speech materials used in routine audiologic evaluations, and 2) an introduction to the second compact disc, which contains tonal and speech materials used in more elaborate auditory evaluations. The first disc (Speech Recognition and Identification Materials, Disc 1.1), which is in its second generation, contains spondaic words, several monosyllabic word tests (Rush Hughes PB-50s, CID W-22, Maryland CNCs, and Northwestern University [NU] No. 6), and the Synthetic Sentence Identification materials. The second disc (Tonal and Speech Materials for Auditory Perceptual Assessment), which was produced in conjunction with the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, contains spondaic words in the MLD paradigm, dichotic materials (chords, nonsense syllables, digits, and sentences), segmented/alternated CNCs, high-pass and low-pass NU No. 6 materials, 45% and 65% compressed NU No. 6 materials, the same 45% and 65% compressed materials compounded with 0.3-s reverberation, frequency tone patterns, and duration tone patterns.