Vowel production in hearing impaired children: A comparison between normal-hearing, hearing-aided and cochlear-implanted children

• Published in: Acta otorrinolaringológica española (English) Vol. 70; no. 5; pp. 251 - 257
• Main Authors: Núñez-Batalla, Faustino, Vasile, Gabriela, Cartón-Corona, Noelia, Pedregal-Mallo, Daniel, Menéndez de Castro, Marta, Guntín García, Maite, Gómez-Martínez, Justo, Carro Fernández, Pilar, Llorente-Pendás, Jose Luis
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Spain 01.09.2019
• Subjects: Articulation Disorders - etiology; Articulation Disorders - physiopathology; Child; Child, Preschool; Cochlear Implants; Feedback, Sensory; Female; Hearing Aids; Hearing Loss - complications; Hearing Loss - physiopathology; Hearing Loss - rehabilitation; Humans; Male; Persons With Hearing Impairments; Phonetics; Speech Acoustics; Speech Production Measurement; Voice Quality; Hipoacusia; Vocal acoustic analysis; Hearing impairment; Producción vocal; Vowel production; Análisis acústico vocal
• ISSN: 2173-5735; 2173-5735
• DOI: 10.1016/j.otoeng.2018.05.004

Inadequate auditory feedback in prelingually deaf children alters the articulation of consonants and vowels. The purpose of this investigation was to compare vowel production in Spanish-speaking deaf children with cochlear implantation, and with hearing-aids with normal-hearing children by means of acoustic analysis of formant frequencies and vowel space. A total of 56 prelingually deaf children (25 with cochlear implants and 31 wearing hearing-aids) and 47 normal-hearing children participated. The first 2 formants (F1 and F2) of the five Spanish vowels were measured using Praat software. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and post hoc Scheffé test were applied to analyze the differences between the 3 groups. The surface area of the vowel space was also calculated. The mean value of F1 in all vowels was not significantly different between the 3 groups. For vowels /i/, /o/ and /u/, the mean value of F2 was significantly different between the 2 groups of deaf children and their normal-hearing peers. Both prelingually hearing-impaired groups tended toward subtle deviations in the articulation of vowels that could be analyzed using an objective acoustic analysis programme.