Assessment of Impaired Hearing by Articulation Scores Free

The phonetically balanced “PB” lists are an effective tool for measuring the ability of impaired ears to hear correctly words of varying degrees of difficulty. If we know the position of a patient's PB articulation curve on the scales of intensity and of discrimination, we can estimate the percentage of ordinary words that he can hear adequately when speech is (1) faint, (2) average, and (3) loud. The average of these three scores constitutes our Social Adequacy Index for hearing. The location of the foot of a patient's articulation curve on the intensity scale can be most quickly and accurately determined by threshold tests once we know the average articulation score that corresponds to the particular threshold test employed. The equivalent PB articulation scores have been determined experimentally for Test No. 9 (spondee words), Intelligibility of Connected Discourse, Test 4C (2‐digit numbers), and Test No. 12 (simple sentences).