Northwestern University Auditory Test No. 6: normative and comparative intelligibility functions.

A commercially available recording of Northwestern University Auditory Test No. 6 (N.U. No. 6) produced by Auditec of St. Louis was evaluated in a series of four studies. Interlist equivalence of this version was initially investigated, and then normative intelligibility functions were developed using listerners with normal hearing. Intelligibility functions for the original version of N.U. No. 6. prepared by Northwestern University, were then derived, concurrently with functions of the Auditec version, using (1) a group of listeners with normal hearing; and (2) a group with sensorineural hearing loss. The results demonstrated good interlist equivalence for the Auditec version of N.U. No. 6. The comparative intelligibility functions for the Auditec and Northwestern versions of N.U. No 6 furthermore indicated a difference between the two recordings, but it was concluded that for clinical purposes the two versions may be considered equivalent.