A Comparison of Speech Intelligibility in Answering Varied Social and Technical Questions

A 22-question interview was conducted with 41 severely hearing-impaired students at NTID in order to compare speech intelligibility in communicating social and technical information and in responses which varied in message predictability. Five trained speech pathologists rated responses live, using a 5-point scale. Mean ratings of speech intelligibility were found to be significantly higher for social material than for technical information. Speech intelligibility ratings in both categories decreased as the message predictability decreased. These findings are discussed relative to communication instruction at NTID and to the assessment and reporting of speech intelligibility ratings.