Abstract
Background Many of the Arabic monosyllabic word lists that are currently available in the literature
have some limitations and drawbacks. Some of these available lists include word structures
that are not consonant-nucleus-consonant (CNC) such as cluster and disyllabic word
structures. Other lists have poor phonetic or phonemic distribution balance and do
not represent some phoneme appropriately in each list.
Purpose The purpose of the present study is to create and validate eight digitally recorded
lists of phonemically balanced CNC words that represent all Arabic phonemes, to be
used in the evaluation of word recognition score (WRS) of Jordanian Arabic-speaking
adults. These lists should be easily adapted by other Arab countries because of the
simplicity of the words, and the balanced inclusion of all the Arabic phonemes.
Research Design The present study is a prospective cross-sectional study.
Study Sample Thirty-one (23 females, 8 males) normal hearing and healthy young adults (18–29 years
old) participated in the present study. All participants were native speakers of Jordanian
Arabic and had no history of ear disease or surgery.
Lists The authors created all possible combinations of Arabic CNC words, and then created
eight phonemically balanced lists with 26 words in each list. Each consonant was presented
only once at the beginning of a word and once at the end of a word in each list. The
lists were recorded using a Jordanian male voice and the intensity of each word was
digitally calibrated.
Data Collection and Analysis The pure tone average (PTA) of 0.5, 1, 2, 4 kHz was calculated for each participant,
and the WRS was obtained for each intensity level in the range of –10 to 55 dB SL
(ref. PTA) in 5 dB steps.
Results No significant difference between right and left ear WRS was found at any intensity
level. The WRSs from both ears were averaged and used in the repeated measure analysis
of variance. Performance-intensity functions for all the lists showed some small but
statistically significant differences between lists. However, none of these differences
were clinically significant (<4%). All the lists showed WRS exceeding 96% at 40 dB
SL, and none of the lists showed statistically significant improvement in WRS beyond
40 dB SL.
Conclusion The present study provides eight lists of recorded and calibrated CNC word lists.
The obtained PI functions showed that these lists are suitable for Jordanian Arabic
speaking adults. These lists can be easily generalized to other Arab countries after
conducting the required follow-up research.
Keywords
word recognition score - monosyllabic words - speech audiometry - performance-intensity
function - audiological evaluation
