title: Test-retest reliability of the Toy Discrimination Test with a masker of noise or babble in children with hearing impairment.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The Toy Discrimination Test measures children's ability to discriminate spoken words. Previous assessments of reliability tested children with normal hearing or mild hearing impairment, and most studies used a version of the test without a masking sound. We assessed test-retest reliability for children with hearing impairment using maskers of broadband noise and two-talker babble.
  
  
  METHODS
  Stimuli were presented from a loudspeaker. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) was varied adaptively to estimate the speech-reception threshold (SRT) corresponding to 70.7% correct performance. Participants completed each masked condition twice.
  
  
  METHODS
  Fifty-five children with permanent hearing impairment participated, aged 3.0 to 6.3 years. Thirty-four children used acoustic hearing aids; 21 children used cochlear implants.
  
  
  RESULTS
  For the noise masker, the within-subject standard deviation of SRTs was 2.4 dB, and the correlation between first and second SRT was + 0.73. For the babble masker, corresponding values were 2.7 dB and + 0.60. Reliability was similar for children with hearing aids and children with cochlear implants.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results can inform the interpretation of scores from individual children. If a child completes a condition twice in different listening situations (e.g. aided and unaided), a difference between scores ≥ 7.5 dB would be statistically significant (p <.05).
authors.affiliation: Ear Institute, University College London, London, UK. r.lovett@ucl.ac.uk
authors.forename: Rosemary
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Lovett
authors.forename: Quentin
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Summerfield
authors.forename: Deborah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Vickers
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior; D002675:Child, Preschool; D019929:Cochlear Implantation; D003054:Cochlear Implants; D012048:Correction of Hearing Impairment / Q000379:methods; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006310:Hearing Aids; D006319:Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009622:Noise / Q000009:adverse effects*; D015588:Observer Variation; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D019986:Persons with Hearing Disabilities / Q000523:psychology* / Q000534:rehabilitation; D010988:Play and Playthings; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013067:Speech Perception; D013069:Speech Reception Threshold Test