Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop, digitally record, evaluate, and psychometrically equate a set of Tongan bisyllabic word lists for use in measurement of word recognition testing. Commonly used bisyllabic words were digitally recorded by male and female native talkers of Tongan. The psychometric performance of the words was measured at ten intensity levels (- 5 to 40 dB HL) in 5 dB increments by 20 listeners with normal hearing acuity. The 200 words with the highest rate of listener identification were included in four relatively psychometrically equivalent word lists of 50 words each and eight half-lists of 25 words each. Using logistic regression, the mean psychometric slope across the created word lists at 50% intelligibility was found to be 6.3%/dB for materials created from the male talker recordings and 6.2%/dB for the female talker recordings. To increase auditory homogeneity of the word recognition lists, the intensity of words in each list was digitally adjusted so that the threshold of each list was equal to the midpoint between the mean thresholds of the male and female half-lists. Digital recordings of the psychometrically equivalent word recognition lists are available on compact disc.

Degree

College and Department

David O. McKay School of Education; Communication Disorders

Rights

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