Development of the California Consonant Test

Area of Science:

• Audiology
• Speech-Language Pathology
• Hearing Science

Background:

• Sensorineural hearing loss impacts speech understanding.
• Accurate assessment of consonant confusion is crucial for rehabilitation.
• Existing speech tests may not capture all aspects of auditory processing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and evaluate the California Consonant Test (CCT) for hearing-impaired individuals.
• To assess the CCT's sensitivity to different hearing loss configurations and degrees.
• To determine the CCT's test-retest reliability and correlation with other speech tests.

Main Methods:

• Development of a 100-item, multiple-choice consonant identification test (CCT).
• Computer-assisted analysis of CCT responses from 550 patients with sensorineural hearing loss.
• Calculation of test-retest correlation and correlation with the W-22 word recognition list.

Main Results:

• The CCT demonstrated high sensitivity to high-tone hearing loss configurations.
• Correlation with the degree of hearing loss was moderate, especially for flat configurations (r = -0.40).
• High test-retest reliability (r = 0.96) and moderate correlation with W-22 (r = 0.35) were observed.

Conclusions:

• The CCT is a valuable tool for identifying consonant confusions in hearing rehabilitation.
• The test shows potential for ranking hearing aid performance.
• Equivalence of 50-item subforms warrants further investigation for time-constrained situations.