Development and validation of the FrBio, an international French adaptation of the AzBio sentence lists

Abstract

Objectives: The goal of this work was to develop and normalise an international French version of the AzBio sentence test.

Design: A corpus of 1000 sentences was generated. These sentences were recorded with four talkers and processed through a four-channel cochlear implant simulation. The mean intelligibility for each sentence achieved by 16 normal-hearing listeners was computed. The consecutively ordered 165 sentences from each talker rendering an average score of 85% were sequentially assigned to 33 lists of 20 sentences. All lists were presented to 30 normal-hearing and 25 hearing-impaired listeners in order to verify their equivalency. Thirty normal-hearing adults were also recruited to assess the test’s psychometrics and define norms.

Results: The results of the list equivalency validation study showed no significant differences in percent correct scores for 30 sentence lists. A binomial distribution model was used to estimate the 95% critical differences for each potential percentage score. Normalization data showed an average performance between 96% and 99% with a very low standard deviation.

Conclusions: With a set of 30 lists, researchers and clinicians can use the FrBio to evaluate a large number of experimental conditions; changes in performance over time or across conditions can then be tracked.

Keywords:

• FrBio
• French adaptation
• AzBio

Note

Acknowledgements

This work was partly supported by Oticon Medical.

The reference to the “AzBio Sentence Test” is used with the permission of Auditory Potential, LLC. Auditory Potential, LLC assumes no liability for the FrBio sentence test or for the sale of this material.

As the FrBio sentence test was created following the model of the AzBio test, the general layout of the present text carefully follows the original article by Spahr et al (2012) describing the development and validation of the AzBio sentence test. This procedure is used with the permission of the first two authors of the original study.

The copyright for the sentence materials is held by AudioTests, which is owned by François Bergeron, PhD.

Address for correspondence: AudioTests, 1516 Pamphile LeMay, Québec, Qc, Canada, [email protected]

Disclosure statement

This research is partly sponsored by Oticon Medical and lead to the development of products which are licenced to AudioTests, in which I have a business interest. I have disclosed those interests fully to Taylor & Francis, and have in place an approved plan for managing any potential conflicts arising from this arrangement.

Notes

1 This condition differs from the original AzBio protocol where only cochlear implant users were recruited for this phase of development.