The Impact Of Variable Speech Rates On Word Recognition Score Of People With Normal Hearing And Hearing Impairment

Objective: To find the relationship between sensorineural hearing loss(SNHL) and the Chinese word recognition score(WRS) of variable speech rates. Methods:The experiment group included 20 patients(20 ears) with mild to middle SNHL , the control group consisted of 20 persons with normal hearing . Both groups were tested using self-made CD with different speech rates. And the WRS were compared between the two groups. Result: At 20dB sensation level(SL), the WRS in control group were 80.5%, 76.5% and 74% at normal speech rate,1.5times of normal speech rate and 2.0 times of normal speech rate respectively. The WRS in experiment group were 73.2%, 67.5% and 48.2% at normal speech rate, 1.5times of normal speech rate and 2.0 times of normal speech rate respectively.Conclusion As speech rates increased from normal to 2.0 times normal , there is a significant difference in the changes of WRS in people with SNHL and people with normal hearing (P < 0.01). And this is possible due to the fact that the temporal resolution ability deteriorates in people with SNHL. For people with SNHL,WRS changed more significantly when speech rate increases from normal to 2.0 times normal rate than it does from normal to 1.5 times normal rate(P < 0.01), which suggested that 2.0 times normal ratemight be more optimal for fast speech rate audiometry than 1.5 times normal rate.