A PRELIMINARY EVALUATION OF THE CLINICAL EFFECTIVENESS OF VOWEL TRAINING FOR HEARING-IMPAIRED CHILDREN ON IBMS SPEECH VIEWER

The clinical effectiveness of the ''Vowel Accuracy Skill Building'' mo dule of IBM's SpeechViewer system was tested by comparing the speech p erformance of four profoundly hearing-impaired children trained on thi s system with four profoundly hearing-impaired children who received t raditional speech training without computer support. Progress in vowel articulation was continuously measured for both groups using SpeechVi ewer. Two measures were taken of vowel improvement: the degree of diff erentiation between the first (F1) and second (F2) formant frequencies for the Absolute value of i vowel and the amount of variation about t he second formant frequency value for this same vowel. Although neithe r measure revealed statistically significant differences between the s ubject groups pre- to post-training, there was a somewhat better avera ge F2 - F1 differentiation at the end of training for the subjects who used SpeechViewer than for those traditionally-trained. Neither metho d of speech training resulted in improved variation for F2. The result s are discussed within the context of current research and the clinica l effectiveness of computer-assisted speech training. Finally, some co mments are offered for improving SpeechViewer.