Phonetically Balance word list ,malayalam is available in ISHA battery;however the full article in which the list was published isnt available.Hence we couldnt find out whether or not psychometric function was done for the list.It would be helpful if someone could suggest any other PB word list in malayalam for which the psychometric function was done or direct me to the orginal article in which the list was published.
Thank you.
What is the evidence that testing with English word lists is not valid. Patients and testers are naturally reluctant for the use of English lists on foreign speakers, but in my experience meaningful results can be obtained.
Have you approached AIISH? I'm sure there was a Malayalam list created as part of a dissertation project in AIISH.
@Anthony: Malayalam has sounds that are completely different from English repertoire. There are 5 types of nasals in Malayalam and a lot other retroflexes that do not exist in English. Testing with English lists will not be valid--especially if speakers are not fluent or do not know half the words of English lists (like NU-6). There will be a lot of phonetic errors (e.g. Indian languages do not have interdental fricatives). My suspicious is that the list is needed for some kind of speech audiometry application. Although your suggestion is interesting, using English lists would answer a different research question (e.g. how do Malayalam-English bilinguals perform on NU-6 list?).
Anthony, there is some evidence in work by Shi's group in New York that even U.S. resident Spanish-English bilinguals may score better when tested in their childhood language, so I would be cautious in assuming that poor results on an English-language test for a non-English speaker would be meaningful. That is, if you get 100%, fantastic. But if you get 48% is it because of a physiologic process that should be addressed, or because it's not their primary language?
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