Alejandro Rivas, MD, Adriana Rivas, PhD, Luz Adriana Rincon, PhD, René Gifford, PhD, Tony Spahr, PhD, Leo Litvak, PhD, Michael Dorman, PhD

Development and Validation of the Spanish AzBio Sentence Corpus

The Otology Group of Vanderbilt

Speaker Disclosure

Consultant for:- Advance Bionics- Cochlear- Med-El- Grace Medical- Stryker- Cook Medical

.

The Otology Group of Vanderbilt

Spanish is the second most spoken language in the world today

• In US,– 41 million people aged five or

older speak Spanish at home.– Second most spoken language of

the United States– Second largest Spanish-speaking

population in the world after Mexico

• There are over 437 million native Spanish speakers around the world.

The Otology Group of Vanderbilt

Test for Children in Spanish

The Otology Group of Vanderbilt

Parent Questionnaires• LittlEARS (0 – 24 mo)• IT-MAIS (0 – 36 )• PEACH (3 – 7 yo)

Language Evaluation• PPTV (>2.5yo)• PLS (0 - 6 yo)• CDI (8 – 30 mo) Auditory Performance

• ESP (3-8yo)

Test for Adult in Spanish

The Otology Group of Vanderbilt

Sentence Recognition Evaluation

HINT (ceiling effect)

There are limited measures of sentence recognition in Spanish with multiple talkers speaking at an

average conversational rate

The Otology Group of Vanderbilt

Objective: Develop a Spanish version of AzBio sentence test

Goals:• Large number of equivalent lists• Quantify list variability• Limit ceiling effects in quiet

The Otology Group of Vanderbilt

Sentence development2000 sentences recorded

Multiple Talkers (2 male, 2 female)Female: F0 = 204 & 216 HzMale: F0 = 108 & 110 Hz

Instructions to Talkers• Conversational speaking rate

• Natural speaking style• Do not over-enunciate• Do not over-articulate

(Do not be too easy to understand)

The Otology Group of Vanderbilt

Intelligibility Estimate• 4 talkers, 2000 sentences• 5-channel CI Simulation

• Random order• 5 normal-hearing adults

Sentence intelligibility is the average percent correct

score from the 5 NH listeners

The Otology Group of Vanderbilt

Sentence Selection• Maximize # of sentences

• Minimize range of performance• Mean score per list = 85% (NH vocoded scores)

• 230 Sentences per Talker• 46 Lists of 20 Sentences

RESULTS• 10 CI users were presented all 46 lists at 60 dB SPL, in quiet• 4 lists were removed due to variability and/or duplicated sentences

42 equivalent lists of 20 sentences

RESULTS

List VariabilityPreliminary data

2-list comparisons for7 patients

95% confidence interval based on Binomial Distribution Model (Thornton & Raffin 1978)

40 items (2 lists)

List development & validation is a lengthy processAcross-list equivalency is possibleVariability can be characterized

We can never have enough lists!

Spanish AzBio Sentence Lists• Now available for across-study comparison in research

& clinical practice • Affords comparison across languages (more

investigation is needed)• Can be used for clinical evaluation (pre- and post-CI)

Lessons learned

Questions