PERFORMANCE ON SPEECH-PERCEPTION MEASURES BY PRELINGUALLY SEVERELY AND PROFOUNDLY HEARING-IMPAIRED YOUNG-ADULTS

The purpose of this study was to examine the performance of 17 preling ually severely and profoundly hearing-impaired subjects on the Speech Pattern Contrast Test Version II (SPAC) to determine its contribution to our understanding of speech perception processes and its feasibilit y as a test instrument with this population. Mean subtest scores range d from 17.4% on the word recognition subtest to 89.2% correct on the v owel height subtest. Although performance on most of the contrast subt ests was significantly correlated with phoneme and word recognition, i ntercorrelations among most subtests were also significant. A variety of factors may limit the feasibility of using the SPAC test with this population.