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 quantitative measures of assessment. 20 children (9 males and 11 females) with moderate to severe hearing impairment, were studied. The protocol of assessment included auditory perceptual assessment (APA) (documented by high fidelity audiorecording), audiological assessment, formal testings, aerodynamic assessment and acoustic analysis. APA showed addected vowels (90%), affected suprasegmental phonology; rate (60%), stress (80%), tonality (85%); decreased resonance (15%); affected voice (45%) and affected intelligibility (85%). Aerodynamic results showed highly significant increase in the subglottic pressure, highly significant decrease in glottal resistance and glottal efficiency, indicating a possible breakdown in respiratory, phonatory and articulatory coordination. Spectrographic results showed significant increase in the syllable duration; vowel duration and sentence duration. Visi-Pitch results showed highly significant increase in the intensity, significant decrease in the maximum fundamental frequency (Fo) and highly significant decrease in the percent pause. The accoustic findings may represent a quantitative correlate to some of the subjective observations of APA.