SS03: REALISTIC ASSESSMENT OF SPEECH AMPLIFICATION

A NEW INTERNATIONAL SPEECH TEST SIGNAL (ISTS) FOR THE ASSESMENT OF SPEECH AMPLIFICATION IN HEARING AIDS

Marcel Vlaming

VU University Medical Centre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

The technology used in hearing aids today has made the functional characterization of current hearing aids quite complex. Measurement procedures that are based on pure tones or noise are still appropriate for quality control purposes but they cannot be used to realistically quantify the amplification of speech. For this reason ISMADHA (a working group that was started by the Technical Committee of the European Hearing Instrument Manuafcturers Association (EHIMA) ) has been working on a new method to address this issue.

A core component of the new method is a new test signal known as the International Speech Test Signal (ISTS), an unintelligible speech-like signal based on multiple languages that may be used to characterize speech amplification. Acoustic characteristics of the ISTS closely match those of real speech. This, together with a multi-lingual structure has created a versatile test signal that is not only appropriate for testing speech amplification but is also international in its application.  This first talk of this session will focus on the development and characteristics of this unique test signal.