The effect of non-native and non-regional speech testing on a multi-lingual population.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: This study was conducted to evaluate the speech perception of Malaysian Chinese adults using the Taiwanese Mandarin HINT (MHINT-T) and the Malay HINT (MyHINT). DESIGN: The MHINT-T and the MyHINT were presented in quiet and noise (front, right and left) conditions under headphones. Results for the two tests were compared with each other and with the norms for each test. STUDY SAMPLE Malaysian Chinese native speakers of Mandarin (N = 58), 18-31 years of age with normal hearing. RESULTS: On average, subjects demonstrated poorer speech perception ability than the normative samples for these tests. Repeated measures ANOVA showed that speech reception thresholds (SRTs) were slightly poorer on the MHINT-T than on the MyHINT for all test conditions. However, normalized SRTs were poorer by 0.6 standard deviations for MyHINT as compared with MHINT-T. CONCLUSIONS: MyHINT and MHINT-T can be used as norm-referenced speech perception measures for Mandarin-speaking Chinese in Malaysia.