An iOS-based speech audiometry for self-assessment of hearing status

Speech audiometry is one of the methods for evaluating hearing status, and recently it’s tended to be implemented on mobile phones with the development of internet and smart devices. Although several applications include the function of speech audiometry, the effectiveness of this function was rarely reported. In this work, we developed an Apple iOS-based application (Hearing Assistant) with functions of pure-tone audiometry and speech audiometry for people speaking Mandarin Chinese. The speech material was designed to reflect listeners’ audibility at specified frequencies. The reliability of the speech audiometry was analyzed and discussed according to the users’ data collected through this application. The results showed a significant but week correlation between pure-tone thresholds and scores of speech audiometry, indicating the speech audiometry can be used to discriminate impaired and normal hearing but it’s not accurate enough to evaluate hearing thresholds quantitatively at each test frequency.