## 4 Discussion  
Speech audiometry serves as a fundamental instrument in audiological assessment, aiding in the diagnosis and rehabilitation of individuals with hearing impairment. While pure-tone audiometry helps to estimate the softest sounds audible to a person, speech audiometry helps to evaluate an individual's capacity for perceiving and understanding speech. Speech audiometry determines patients' auditory ability using word lists that typify the everyday listening experience. Speech audiometry employs standardized materials, typically in the language spoken by the target population. Language-specific nuances, including phonological features, influence speech perception and recognition. The linguistic barriers represent a challenge when using speech materials different than the listener's native language. The necessity to develop speech audiometry test materials in native languages is essential in order to obtain valid speech recognition test results. For this purpose, speech tests have been constructed in various languages based on specific linguistic features. Word lists for speech audiometry tests in the Lithuanian language were first developed more than 40 years ago. Polysyllabic words from those lists were both used for the speech recognition threshold and for the WRS measurement. The set of words consisted of 20 items per list. Several words included in the lists have already become historicisms or have gained a negative connotation in the current context. The absence of standardized materials in the Lithuanian language presented a significant challenge in accurately assessing speech perception abilities among Lithuanian-speaking individuals. The aim of this present study was to compose a set of Lithuanian word lists for word recognition testing. In order to affirm the validity and reliability of speech tests, the principle of phonemic balance (PB) has been used for many years in the development of speech material [4]. Word lists are considered to be phonemically balanced when different phonemes occur in the test material at the same relative frequency as they do in the language. This ensures that the test adequately samples the phonetic inventory of the language and provides a comprehensive assessment of the listener's phonetic discrimination abilities. English word lists, like PB-50, CID W-22 and NU-6, have been designed on the basis of the phonemic balance principle. Though there is also a converse estimation, as described by [PERSON] et al. [24], that speech discrimination scores do not seem to be affected by whether the word list has \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c} \hline \hline  & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**The Instantaneous Slopes (\%/dB)**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Linear Slope 20–80**} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{**Average Slope**} \\ \cline{2-5}  & **20 Percent** & **50 Percent** & **80 Percent** & **Percent (\%/dB)** & **(\%/dB)** \\ \hline
**List 1** & 4.29 & 5.15 & 4.49 & 4.90 & 4.82 \\
**List 2** & 4.32 & 5.17 & 4.50 & 4.92 & 4.84 \\
**List 3** & 4.27 & 5.10 & 4.38 & 4.84 & 4.76 \\
**List 4** & 4.33 & 5.19 & 4.53 & 4.93 & 4.86 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 4: Mean performance of Lithuanian bisyllabic 50-item lists. phonemic balance or not, PB has been chosen as the linguistic criterion in the development of Lithuanian speech material. [PERSON] (1948) has revealed the relation between the number of sounds in a word and the ability to recognize that word [3]. The more phonemes comprising the word, the easier the word is identified. Therefore, monosyllabic words are widely used in speech audiometry tests. In our study, bisyllabic words have been selected for the list items, because due to linguistic peculiarity there is an inadequate number of monosyllabics in the Lithuanian language. The statistical analysis of the Lithuanian language has revealed that two-syllable, three-syllable and four-syllable words dominate in the standard Lithuanian language.