A systematic review of speech recognition assessment tools for Persian-speaking children with and without hearing disorders

Background :

Speech recognition is a significant component of speech perception assessment as a main clinical target in children with hearing disorders. The current article presents a systematic review designed to provide clinical and research guidelines for speech recognition assessment in Persian-speaking children with and without hearing disorders.

A systematic search was conducted to cumulate the research evidence for the assessment of speech recognition in Persian-speaking children with and without hearing disorders. Peer-reviewed journal articles dedicated to this issue and published between 1982 and December 2021 were discovered through a search of the electronic databases of PubMed, Scopus, MEDLINE, Web of Science, Magiran, IranMedex, Scientific Information Database (SID), and Google Scholar. The papers were analyzed according to different variables, including test age, vocabulary competency, cognitive demands, response format, presentation mode, stimulus format, stimulus variability, stimulus mode, and test conditions.

The review identified four papers related to the development of five assessment tools for measuring speech recognition in Persian-speaking children, namely Persian Monosyllabic Lexical Neighborhood Tests (PMLNTs), Persian Disyllabic Lexical Neighborhood Tests (PDLNTs), Persian version of the words-in-noise (WIN), Tavana (test for evaluating auditory skills), and closed-set speech recognition test for Persian-speaking children. The properties and limitations of each test have been considered in the current review article.

Based on this systematic review, only four speech recognition assessment tools exist for measuring specifically spoken word recognition in Persian-speaking children. The results of this review article can be used as a clinical and research guideline for assessing speech recognition in Persian-speaking children with hearing disorders.