Can the Hearing Handicap Inventory for Adults Be Used as a Screen for Perception Experiments?

When screening participants for speech perception experiments, formal audiometric screens are often not an option, especially when studies are conducted over the Internet. We investigated whether a brief standardized self-report questionnaire, the screening version of the Hearing Handicap Inventory for Adults (HHIA-S), could be used to approximate the results of audiometric screening. Our results suggest that while the HHIA-S is useful, it needs to be used with extremely strict cut-off values that could exclude around 25% of people with no hearing impairment who are interested in participating. Well constructed, standardized single questions might be a good alternative for web experiments.