CAPT Hearing

This app has been designed for children, to show speech sounds that children can distinguish through hearing. In the app, some simple, familiar words with the same vowel and different consonants are played. The child sees 4 attractive pictures, one of which matches the word that is heard and 3 others that sound similar. For example, the word that is heard from the speaker is “light” and the pictures are: white, right, light, night.

The child chooses the picture on the iPad/iPhone screen that matches the word by touching the target picture on the screen. The purpose is to identify speech sounds that are distinct from each other for the child and to provide a matrix of confusions between similar speech sounds.

The words can be presented in quiet or in background noise. The results are stored in an output file. The loudness level is set by the tester, either through an audiometer or using the volume control on the device.

The test time is around 9 minutes for CAPT (48 trials). The iPad/iPhone task helps to maintain the child’s attention and motivation in listening to the words. The 48 words in this app are suitable for children from around five years of age, as they may need to recognise the written word. They can become familiar with the pictures before running the task. These word sets have been shown to be sensitive to small differences in hearing or for adjusting settings for hearing aids or cochlear implants.