Meimei Zhu1, Xiaosong Wang, Qian-Jie Fu. 1. Division of Communication and Auditory Neuroscience, House Research Institute, Los Angeles, CA 90057, USA.
Abstract
CONCLUSION: Given the phonetic balancing across lists and the validation with spectrally degraded speech, the present Mandarin disyllable recognition test (DRT) materials may be useful for assessing speech performance of Mandarin-speaking cochlear implant (CI) users. If combined with the previously developed sentence materials, these materials would help to establish standardized speech perception tests for Mandarin-speaking hearing-impaired (HI) and CI patients. OBJECTIVES: To develop standardized Mandarin DRT materials that can be used to evaluate the speech performance of Mandarin-speaking HI and CI patients, and to establish standardized Mandarin speech perception test materials that include both disyllables and sentences. METHODS: Ten phonetically balanced Mandarin DRT lists were developed. The DRT materials were validated in 8 normal-hearing (NH) subjects listening to unprocessed speech and in 10 NH subjects listening to a 4-channel, sine-wave vocoded acoustic simulation of CI speech processing. Performance with the DRT materials was compared to that with Mandarin sentence materials previously developed by our group. RESULTS: The distribution of vowels, consonants, and tones within each DRT list was similar to that observed across commonly used Chinese characters. There was no significant difference in disyllable word recognition across lists in both unprocessed and four-channel vocoded speech. There was a significant correlation between disyllable and sentence recognition performance.
CONCLUSION: Given the phonetic balancing across lists and the validation with spectrally degraded speech, the present Mandarin disyllable recognition test (DRT) materials may be useful for assessing speech performance of Mandarin-speaking cochlear implant (CI) users. If combined with the previously developed sentence materials, these materials would help to establish standardized speech perception tests for Mandarin-speaking hearing-impaired (HI) and CIpatients. OBJECTIVES: To develop standardized Mandarin DRT materials that can be used to evaluate the speech performance of Mandarin-speaking HI and CI patients, and to establish standardized Mandarin speech perception test materials that include both disyllables and sentences. METHODS: Ten phonetically balanced Mandarin DRT lists were developed. The DRT materials were validated in 8 normal-hearing (NH) subjects listening to unprocessed speech and in 10 NH subjects listening to a 4-channel, sine-wave vocoded acoustic simulation of CI speech processing. Performance with the DRT materials was compared to that with Mandarin sentence materials previously developed by our group. RESULTS: The distribution of vowels, consonants, and tones within each DRT list was similar to that observed across commonly used Chinese characters. There was no significant difference in disyllable word recognition across lists in both unprocessed and four-channel vocoded speech. There was a significant correlation between disyllable and sentence recognition performance.
Authors: Shawn L Nissen; Richard W Harris; Ron W Channell; Brooke Conklin; Misty Kim; Lena Wong Journal: Int J Audiol Date: 2011-03 Impact factor: 2.117