Development of a Turkish Monosyllabic Word Recognition Test for Adults

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to develop a Turkish-specific speech recognition test, considering phonemic balance, homogeneity, andfamiliarity criteria.MATERIALS and METHODS: The most frequently used Turkish monosyllabic words were selected from the corpus. Thirty-six young adults withnormal hearing were divided into two groups and asked to listen to words from the word pool; the words were given twice at six different intensitylevels. The least and most frequently known words were identified and eliminated in order to provide homogeneity. Three word lists, each composedof 50 phonemically balanced words, were developed to be used in the tests. These lists were divided into two according to the phonemicbalance criteria.RESULTS: No statistically significant difference was found among the word lists. Furthermore, the internal reliability of each list was analyzed usingKR-20 and was found to be above 98% for all lists.CONCLUSION: The lists derived from the Turkish language were ascertained to be appropriate for use. As a result of using the developed lists totest individuals with various auditory pathologies, it will be possible to assess the lists’ capability to distinguish pathological cases according to thelocation of the pathology.KEY WORDS: Monosyllabic word, speech recognition test, speech audiometry, word lists