PURPOSE: to determine the Performance-Intensity function for sentences in a group of individuals with normal hearing and a group of individuals with sensorineural hearing loss, through the Portuguese Sentence List test (PSL), and compare the results obtained in these groups. METHODS: the PSL test was used to determine voice detection threshold (VDT), recognition sentences in silence threshold (RSST) and maximum percent indexes of sentences recognition in silence (MPISRS), in a group of individuals with normal hearing (group A) and a group of individuals with sensorineural hearing loss (group B). RESULTS: group A was made of 30 subjects, 19 female and 11 male, from 18 to 40-year old. In group B, 15 subjects were female and 14 were male, from 23 to 81-year old. In group A, were found average values of 16.47 dB for the VDT, 23.77 dB for the RSST and 31.23 dB for the MPISRS. In group B, were found values of 38.38 dB for the VDT, 50.35 dB for the RSST and 59.65 dB for the MPISRS. The statistical analysis showed statistically significant differences between the groups. CONCLUSION: performance-intensity functions for sentences were obtained with the PSL test. The results showed that each 1 dB of variation in intensity for sentence presentation represented a change of 6.77% in speech recognition for normal hearing individuals and 4.70% in a group of individuals with hearing loss.
Hearing; Speech; Speech Discrimination Tests; Speech Intelligibility; Speech Perception
