A standardised test to evaluate audio-visual speech intelligibility in French

Objective Lipreading, which plays a major role in the communication of the hearing impaired, lacked a French standardised tool. Our aim was to create and validate an audio-visual (AV) version of the French Matrix Sentence Test (FrMST). Design Video recordings were created by dubbing the existing audio files. Sample Thirty-five young, normal-hearing participants were tested in auditory and visual modalities alone (Ao, Vo) and in AV conditions, in quiet, noise, and open and closed-set response formats. Results Lipreading ability (Vo) varied from 1% to 77%-word comprehension. The absolute AV benefit was 9.25ℒdB SPL in quiet and 4.6ℒdB SNR in noise. The response format did not influence the results in the AV noise condition, except during the training phase. Lipreading ability and AV benefit were significantly correlated. Conclusions The French video material achieved similar AV benefits as those described in the literature for AV MST in other languages. For clinical purposes, we suggest targeting SRT80 to avoid ceiling effects, and performing two training lists in the AV condition in noise, followed by one AV list in noise, one Ao list in noise and one Vo list, in a randomised order, in open or close set-format.