Development of the California Consonant Test.

A 100-item, multiple-choice test for consonant identification labeled the California Consonant Test (CCT) has been developed expressly for use with hearing-impaired patients. A computer-assisted analysis was obtained for the test responses of 550 patients with sensorineural hearing loss. The test seems highly sensitive to configurations of high-tone loss, but the correlation with degree of loss, especially in the instance of flat configurations, is somewhat low (-0.40). Test-retest correlation is 0.96. A correlation of 0.35 with a W-22 list indicates that the two tests are measuring different aspects of speech reception. In addition to its usefulness in identifying consonant confusions for rehabilitation purposes, the CCT may prove helpful in ranking hearing aids. For the latter purpose, two 50-item subforms, designed for equivalence, have been under observation for possible use when time is a critical factor. Repetitions of the 100-item list offer greater stability, however.