Objective: To create and validate a Spanish sentence test for evaluation of speech understanding of Spanish-speaking listeners with hearing loss or cochlear implants (CI).
Study design: Two thousand sentences were recorded from two male and two female speakers. The average intelligibility of each sentence was estimated as the mean score achieved by five listeners presented with a five-channel cochlear implant simulation. The mean scores of each sentence were used to construct 42 lists of 20 sentences with similar mean scores. List equivalency was then validated by presenting all lists to 10 CI users and in a 2-list comparison in a clinical setting to 38 CI patients.
Setting: Tertiary referral center.
Patients: Normal-hearing listeners (n = 5), CI users in a research study (n = 10), and CI patients (n = 38) in routine clinical follow-up.
Intervention: Multiple sentence lists from a newly minted speech perception test.
Main outcome measures: List intelligibility and equivalence across sentence lists.
Results: Forty-two lists of sentences were equivalent when all lists were presented in random order to 10 adult CI recipients. The variability of scores observed on lists presented to the same listener in the same condition was captured using a binomial distribution model based on a 40-item list for 38 adult implant recipients.
Conclusion: The Spanish AzBio Sentence Test includes 42 lists of 20 sentences. These sentences are roughly equivalent in terms of overall difficulty and confidence limits have been provided to assess the significance of variability in list scores observed within or across conditions. These materials will be of benefit when assessing native Spanish speakers in both research and clinical settings.