The effect of dialect on speech audiometry testing.

Purpose: In this study, the authors examined the validity of using materials from 2 nonregional yet mutually intelligible dialects to evaluate an individual's speech recognition threshold (SRT) and word recognition (WR) abilities and whether a speaker of 1 dialect could accurately administer and score materials in the other dialect.

Method: Previously created SRT and WR materials were presented to 32 Mandarin listeners with normal hearing: 16 speakers of Mainland Mandarin and 16 speakers of Taiwan Mandarin. Hearing abilities were examined using SRT and WR materials created for speakers from 2 different regional dialects.