TRAINING IN THE USE OF A TACTILE SUPPLEMENT TO LIPREADING - A LONG-TERM CASE-STUDY

The major objective of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of long-term training for an adult subject fitted with the Tactaid VII vi brotactile aid. A secondary goal of this work was to provide a detaile d description of how the KTH Tracking Procedure can be used for traini ng and evaluative purposes. Design: An adult male subject was fitted w ith a Tactaid VII tactile aid and provided with weekly training sessio ns in its use over an 18 mo period. The KTH Tracking Procedure was use d for training and to record the subject's performance over time. Addi tional post-training measures included sentence lists and consonants p resented in an [aCa] frame. Results: The results obtained showed a 19 to 37% improvement in tracking rate when lipreading was supplemented b y the Tactaid VII compared with those obtained via lipreading alone. A ttempts to supplement Lipreading with auditorily presented voicing cue s did not result in improved performance. At the completion of the tra ining program, additional tracking measures were obtained with an unfa miliar female speaker. The results of this testing again showed enhanc ed performance when the Tactaid VII supplemented lipreading. Posttrain ing testing with sentence materials yielded scores of 29.8% correct fo r lipreading alone and 39.9% correct for lipreading plus the Tactaid V II. The subject's scores for consonants in [aCa] testing were 47.0% co rrect for lipreading alone and 60.1% correct for lipreading plus the T actaid VII. Conclusions: The study showed that the use of the Tactaid VII resulted in improved lipreading performance for a range of materia ls and with two different speakers. The results also highlight the val ue of the KTH Tracking Procedure for testing and training purposes.