New to this Forum, and have been searching around on Google for some information. What constitutes “good” or “bad” word recognition scores? Say for instance my score of 92%…if that is at my level of 85 dB, or at 60 dB, would that be better–or is it the percentage, no matter the dB, that is more important? It wasn’t clear to me in reading that it made a difference or not.
Thanks.
Short answer: The percentage is what matters, not the dB.
I found this article helpful:
Longer answer: Of course it´s not completely irrelevant at which level your WRS is measured. Per definition, a level should be used that allows you to understand as good as possible.
So why do this? It is done to find out how much you can understand in perfect conditions. This is the maximum you will be able to achieve with hearing aids.
For instance, if your WRS is 70% at 100 dB, it´s unlikely that you will be able to understand more than 70% with a perfectly fit hearing aid.
On the other hand, if your WRS is 100% at 100 dB, the goal for hearing-aid fitting will be 100% - but one must take care that the aids don´t get too loud, which might be a problem in this case.
In your case I´d like to ask: How many words were presented? 92% is pretty close to 100%, when the test is done the next day, you might get 100% as well, or a bit worse.
But, to answer your question: A good WRS is 100%. 92% might be considered “quite good”.
For your hearing aid fitting, this means that if you understand, say, 50% at 65 dB (normal conversation level), then with the hearing aid you might understand 92% at 65 dB. You can´t expect 100% at 65 dB.
Now the dB level matters: If you get your best score at, say, 50 dB, then you don´t need a hearing aid. If you get your best score at 70 dB, you might need a small hearing aid, if it´s 90dB, you need a stronger hearing aid and so on.
Yours
Musician_72