Possibility of replacing sentences repetition task for conversational speech in the intelligibility assessment of hearing impaired children

Speech intelligibility is an important index of verbal communication skill among a variety of disorders such as hearing impairment. Assessment of such intelligibility holds different important issues. One of the best procedures is to obtain a conversational speech in such cases. The main goal of this study was to examine the possibility of replacing sentence repetition task in aforementioned patients` conversation and assess their intelligibility values. Twenty-six, 4-7 years old sensorineural hearing impaired children with moderate to profound degrees, were selected. Inclusive patients were those who referred to Karaj`s educational and rehabilitation center, during first six months of 2013. They were requested to repeat the sentences expressed by the evaluator, after watching the targeted educational videos. Subjects’ conversational speech qualities were taken by answering the questions in regard to different issues such as birthday parties, class tasks, and travels. The responds of 104 listeners were recorded and divided into four groups: naïve, mother, less and fully experienced expert. The percent of the words which recognized accurately by listeners to their total expressed words were calculated. The data analyzed with paired t-test. The outcome showed, in all listeners, their mean of conversational speech intelligibility was less than their mean of sentence intelligibility (0/001 >p). It may be concluded, there is no evidences of using sentences repetition task can be implied as an alternative measure of conversational speech in hearing impaired intelligibility measurement.