The digit triplet test as a self-test for hearing screening at the age of school-entry

Abstract

Objective

The current study aimed to investigate the feasibility of the digit triplet test (DTT) as a self-test in normal-hearing children at school-entry age (5–6 years) compared to an administrator-controlled test.

Design and study sample

Thirty-seven first grade elementary school children took part in this study. Next to a pure-tone screening, the test battery consisted of a DTT speech-in-noise screening (self-test and administrator-controlled assessment), and cognitive tests related to auditory/working memory and attention skills.

Results

The reference-SRT ± 2SD, obtained with the administrator-controlled DTT, was −9.8 ± 1.6 dB SNR, and could be estimated with a precision of 0.7 dB. The test duration for one ear was about 4.5 min. Self-tests resulted in higher (poorer) SRTs. Only a small proportion of children performed stably across repeated self-test administrations. With about 6 min for one ear, the test duration was rather long. The influence of auditory/working memory and attentional abilities appeared to be limited.

Conclusion

Our data suggest that a self-administered DTT is not suitable for a large proportion of children at school-entry.

Keywords:

• Hearing screening
• attention
• auditory memory

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Meg Willio, Eva Mertens, and Marianne De Smet (master students of the Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology program, KU Leuven) for their help with participant recruitment and data collection.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Notes

1 For N = 2 children, the data could not be retrieved.

2 Self-test SRTs across sessions obtained from children who experienced difficulties with the digits’ written representation ranged between −5.9 and +10 dB SNR and compared poorly to the average self-test SRT of −7.7 dB SNR obtained in the group of children without such difficulties. Their SRTs obtained through verbal assessment (−8.8, −9.2, and −10.5 dB SNR) were more conform with the reference-group average of −9.8 dB SNR for that test condition than the self-test.

3 Including this child’s SRT of −0.3 dB SNR for the administrator-controlled test increased the between-subject variability (SD) from 0.8 to 1.8 dB.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a TBM-FWO grant from the Research Foundation-Flanders [Grant no. T002216N].