MULTISENSORY SPEECH-PERCEPTION OF YOUNG-CHILDREN WITH PROFOUND HEARING-LOSS

The contribution of a two-channel vibrotactile aid (Trill VTA 2/3, AVR Communications LTD) to the audiovisual perception of speech was evalu ated in four young children with profound hearing loss using words and speech pattern contrasts. An intensive, hierarchical, and systematic training program was provided. The results show that the addition of t he tactile (T) modality to the auditory and visual (A+V) modalities en hanced speech perception performance significantly on all rests. Speci fically, at the end of the training sessions, the tactile supplementat ion increased word recognition scores in a 44-word, closed-set task by 12 percentage points; detection of consonant in Final position by 50 percentage points; detection of sibilant in final position by 30 perce ntage points; and detection of voicing in final position by 25 percent age points. Significant learning over time was evident For all test ma terials, in all modalities. As expected, fastest learning (i.e., small est time constants) was found for the AVT condition. The results of th is study provide further evidence that sensory information provided by the tactile modality can enhance speech perception in young children.