Development and Validation of the Spatial Separation Sentence Test in Kannada

Hermon, Asish Mervin; Ganapathy, Kanaka; Palaniswamy, Hari Prakash; Muthu, Arivudai Nambi Pitchai

doi:.0..

J Audiol Otol > Epub ahead of print

Original Article

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7874/jao.2023.00325 [Epub ahead of print] Published online April 30, 2024.

Development and Validation of the Spatial Separation Sentence Test in Kannada

Asish Mervin Hermon¹

, Kanaka Ganapathy¹

, Hari Prakash Palaniswamy¹

, Arivudai Nambi Pitchai Muthu²

¹Department of Speech and Hearing, Manipal College of Health Professions, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, Karnataka, India
²Department of Audiology and Speech Language Pathology, KMC Mangalore, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Karnataka, India

Correspondence Kanaka Ganapathy ,Tel: +91-9845384136, Fax: +91-820 2571915, Email: g.kanaka@manipal.edu

Submitted: July 28, 2023 Accepted after revision: November 21, 2023

Abstract

Background and Objectives
This study aimed to develop and validate a modified version of the Speech in Noise Sentence Test in Kannada, which would be appropriate for testing the speech comprehension ability of children aged 8-12 years.
Subjects and Methods
A total of 120 sentences were chosen from 200 familiar sentences and split into four lists. Continuous discourse was used as a competition or distractor. Using MATLAB, the target stimulus was presented at 0-degree azimuth while the distractor’s location varied (+90° and -90° azimuth). The test was programmed to dynamically adjust the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) based on participants’ responses. After initial validation, a pilot study was conducted with 60 typically hearing children aged 8 to 12 years.
Results
The SNR50 scores significantly improved when the distractor and target sentences were spatially separated across all groups. Age had a significant influence on the spatial separation scores. The test-retest reliability was excellent.
Conclusions
The developed stimuli effectively measured spatial separation, and the normative and psychometric analyses demonstrated reliable outcomes.

Keywords: Spatial hearing; Auditory processing; Children; SNR50; Speech in noise