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Background:Speech is a stimulus with high redundancy because the information in it is conveyed in several ways simultaneously. Because of redundancy, a regular speech identification test is largely insensitive to identifying high frequency hearing loss in a subject. The present study aimed to develop and standardise a word list in the Nepali language in which the selected words have elevated high frequency content. Material and Methods: The study was conducted in three phases. The first stage was to develop a high frequency word list, which was completed by gathering familiar bisyllabic words, recording them, and then selecting words dominant in high frequencies. In stage 2, the developed word list was administered to 100 individuals with normal hearing. In stage 3, the final lists were administered to 10 individuals with simulated high frequency hearing loss in order to determine the usefulness of the list. Finally, 7 psychometrically equivalent word lists with 20 words per list were developed.Results:Normal hearing individuals showed Speech Identification Scores of more than 95% whereas in the case of the simulated high frequency loss group, significantly poorer speech identification scores were obtained.Conclusions:This present study standardised high frequency word lists in Nepali and all the lists were validated in subjects with simulated high frequency hearing loss. Hence, this can be used as a standard high frequency word list in the Nepali population. |
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