Some speech tests that are commonly done are the Speech Reception Threshold and Speech Discrimination Scores. Speech Reception Thresholds is done to measure the minimum level to which a person is able to hear, understand and repeat 50% of the speech material. Speech Discrimination Scores is a measure of the patient’s ability to understand speech when it is presented at a level that is easily heard and is scored by the percentage of words identified correctly.
Speech in Noise (SIN) tests are a specialized assessment that measures a person’s ability to understand speech in noisy environments or where there are background sounds. It provides information on the status of a person’s auditory system in real life situations where background noise is always present . SIN tests that are available are BKB-SIN (Bamford-Kowald-Bench) and QuickSIN versions.
The QuickSIN is a speech-in-noise test that quickly and easily measures the ability to hear noise. QuickSIN is a quick (under 5 minutes) and easy test that allows the hearing care professional to quantify their patients’ ability to understand speech in noise. Clients report that QuickSIN recreates difficult background sounds similar to the real-world environments.
The BKB-SIN can be used to estimate Signal to Noise Ratio loss in children and adults for whom the QuickSIN test is too difficult. It is appropriate for adults with auditory memory difficulties and children.
