Introducing Speech Audiometry in Albanian Language

There are no validated speech audiometry lists of words in Albanian. The aim of this study was to create and evaluate lists of words for children and young adults with normal hearing. In total, 20 lists of 10 spondaic dissyllabic words were created, taking into account the idiosyncrasies of the Albanian Language. Eighty-three (83) young adults and eighty-six (86) children were included in this study from November 2018 to November 2019. For each patient’s ear the difference between the Speech Recognition Threshold (SRT) and the Pure Tone Average threshold (PTA) was calculated to analyse if the value was less or equal to 7 dB in order to validate the 20 wordlists. The psychometric function slope of the resulted speech audiometry graph was also calculated to compare it with the ones of other Indo-European languages. The difference between the SRT and PTA was 3.2 +/- 2.1 dB in adults and 3.3 + /- 2.4 dB in children. A value ≤ 7 dB was observed in 93 % of adults and 92% of children. The psychometric function slope was 7.3%/ dB in adults and 7.9%/ dB in children, similar to those found in other Indo-European languages. Speech audiometry in the Albanian Language can now be performed using the lists defined in the present study.