General introduction 17 repeat in case of misunderstanding or good self-acceptance, and inadequate coping behavior, such as avoiding conversations or having feelings of embarrassment as a consequence of communication problems. Noise The amount of noise at theworkplace can be investigated during noisemeasurements at the workplace (South, 2013). Another approach for assessing the amount of noise at the workplace is to ask employees to rate the subjective amount of noise at their workplace, a question that is for example included in the Amsterdam Checklist for Hearing and Work (ACHW) . Other workplace facilitators and barriers can be explored with several scales of the Questionnaire on the Experience and Evaluation of Work (QEEW), such as the scales relationship with colleagues, relationship with supervisor, work pressure, and pace and amount of work (Van Veldhoven et al., 2015). Assessment of activities and participation Aspects of activities and participation can be assessed using hearing tests and questionnaires, including generic, hearing specific, work specific, and hearing & work specific questionnaires. Hearing tests Speech audiometry assesses the ability to repeat monosyllabic words in a quiet listening environment and can be used to predict the ability to understand speech in a quiet environment ( Jerger et al., 1968). It includes monosyllabic words that can be presented in a free field setting or under headphones. Alternative speech stimuli for speech perception tests are digits or everyday sentences, such as the Dutch sentences developed by Plomp and Mimpen (1979), or the VU98 speech material, developed by Versfeld et al. (2000). Speech perception tests can also be performed in adverse listening conditions, such as in reverberation or in noisy environments. The outcome of these tests is the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), which is defined as the SNR at which fifty percent of the responses is correct. Some of the speech perception tests in noise can be well
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