Effects of accent on SRTs in hearing impaired children
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The effects of familiar versus unfamiliar accents on Speech Recognition Scores in children who are hearing impaired.
IRAS ID
144012
Contact name
Jayne Vallance
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde
Research summary
The following study aims to assess the impact of regional accent on Speech Recognition Scores in children with hearing impairment.
Speech Recognition testing using the automated Parrot system (Soundbyte Solutions) allows speech testing to be carried out in children without the variables involved in live voice testing. Having the prerecorded Parrot test ensures test retest repeatability giving reassurance that the test is being performed accurately and effectively. (Van Zyl 2013).
There has been strong evidence to suggest that using a regional accent, which is unfamiliar to the listener, results in ‘a decreased level of accuracy in word identification’ (Floccia et al 2006) and ‘accentrelated variations would elicit a perceptual cost in the course of word recognition’ (Girard et al 2006) In order to overcome this issue Royal Hospital for Sick Children’s Audiology Department have recorded the AB wordlist on the automated parrot system using a regional accent. The aims of the study are to use these recordings to compare speech recorded in a regional Glaswegian and ‘standardised’ English accent to assess:
• Do Speech materials recorded using a regional accent yield significantly different speech recognition scores in children than those obtained using materials recorded using a less familiar accent?
• If there is an effect of accent on speech recognition scores, does the size of this effect vary in relation to the age of the child and their degree of hearing loss?REC name
West of Scotland REC 5
REC reference
14/WS/0130
Date of REC Opinion
2 Jul 2014
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion