CLINICAL-APPLICATION OF DISTORTED SPEECH AUDIOMETRY

The clinical validity of four different low-redundant speech tests was calculated using four groups of 83 patients with retrocochlear or cen tral auditory lesions. The speech tests used were: interrupted speech (7 or 10 interruptions/s) time-compressed speech and filtered speech. A comparison between patients and age-matched normal-hearing controls showed that the patients had significantly lower speech recognition sc ore. The best sensitivity ratings of the tests were between 47% and 80 %, the highest in patients with cerebellopontine angle tumours and tem poral lobe lesions, and the lowest in vascular brainstem lesions. The speech tests with the highest sensitivity were 7 interruptions/s and t ime-compressed speech.