MULTIDIMENSIONAL-ANALYSIS OF SPEECH OF HEARING-IMPAIRED CHILDREN

The character of speech of hearing impaired children was evaluated via multidimensional protocol in order to provide sensitive and quantitat ive measures of assessment. 20 children (9 males and 11 females) with moderate to severe hearing impaiment, were studied. The protocol of as sessment included auditory perceptual assessment (APA) (documented by high fidelity audiorecording), audiological assessment, formal testing s, aerodynamic assessment and acoustic analysis. APA showed addected v owels (90%), affected suprasegmental phonology; rate (60%), stress (80 %), tonality (85%); decreased resonance (15%); affected voice (45%) an d affected intelligibility (85%). Aerodynamic results showed highly si gnificant increase inthe subglottic pressure, highly significant decre ase in glottal resistance and glottal efficiency, indicating a possibl e breakdown in respiratory, phonatory and articulatory coordination. S pectrographic results showed significant increase in the syllable dura tion; vowel duration and sentence duration. Visi-Pitch results showed highly significant increase in the intensity, significant decease in t he maximum fundamental frequency (Fo) and highly significant decrease in the percent pause. The accoustic findings may represent a quantitat ive correlate to some of the subjective observations of APA.