An evaluation of speech audiometry by bone conduction in hearing-impaired adults.

Pure-tone thresholds, speech reception thresholds (SRT), and speech discrimination scores (DS) were obtained by ac and bc on 20 normal-hearing and 30 hearing-impaired adults. Correlations between the SRT and pure-tone thresholds (ave. of .5, 1, and 2 kc/s) were significant by both ac and bc. Correlations between DS by ac and bc were also highly significant, indicating the value of the bc DS in specific difficult cases. The clinical observation was confirmed statistically of decreasing DS with increasing sensorineural hearing loss.