The Relationship between Esophageal Speech Proficiency and Selected Measures of Auditory Function

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Abstract
Twenty-one male laryngectomees enrolled in intensive esophageal speech training were given a variety of auditory tests two weeks after beginning therapy. Included in the battery was a multiple-choice discrimination test designed to assess ability to discriminate esophageal speech. After four months of therapy, subjects recorded a standard passage. Listening tapes were constructed from these recordings. Twenty unsophisticated listeners rated each subject’s overall speech proficiency on a sevenpoint scale. All auditory measures, that is, pure-tone average, speech reception threshold, speech discrimination, and esophageal speech discrimination, were significantly correlated with mean ratings of speech proficiency. Stepwise regression indicated that the measure of the ability of laryngectomees to discriminate average esophageal speech was significant at the 0.01 level and accounted for 38% of the total variance in judged esophageal speech proficiency. This finding lends support to the clinical observation that ability to understand esophageal speech may be an important variable in acquiring esophageal speech.

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