Durational Feature of Speech Segments in Children with Cochlear Implants
Mentor 1
Jing Yang
Location
Union Wisconsin Room
Start Date
5-4-2019 1:30 PM
End Date
5-4-2019 3:30 PM
Description
Spoken language is acquired through hearing a language clearly and hearing oneself speak the language. This chain of learning can be broken by hearing impairments. The purpose of our research is to compare the durational feature of speech segments produced by prelingually deafened native Mandarin children with cochlear implants to those by Mandarin-speaking peers with normal hearing. The durational measurements were performed on a total of 10 native Mandarin children (4 with normal hearing and 6 with cochlear implants). A visual-auditory repetition task was used to elicit speech samples from the participants. Each child was shown a picture on a computer screen followed by an audio prompt produced by a Mandarin-speaking adult. Then each child was asked to repeat the target word. The speech materials included a list of Mandarin disyllabic words which contains 6 Mandarin affricates /ts, ts?, t?, t??, t?, t??/, five fricatives /f, s, ?, ?, x/ and seven Mandarin monophthongal vowels /a, i, u, y, ?, ?/ located in the first syllable of the words. Fricatives are speech sounds that are produced by forcing air through a narrow space, for example, an ‘f’ or a ‘v’ sound. An Affricate is a speech sound that is produced by blocking the airflow then releasing into a Fricative sound, such as the ‘ch’ sound. Vowel sounds are classified as sounds that have little restriction in the vocal tract, for instance, the ‘a’ sound in apple. Acoustic Analysis was performed to measure the duration of affricates, fricatives, and vowel sounds. . According to previous literature that showed deviations of speech characteristics in CI children relative to normal hearing children, we anticipate that the acoustic deviation will also be reflected in their duration features. The findings from this study will help researchers, clinicians, and teachers, better understand the speech production of children with CIs and thus develop a more targeted intervention plan to improve their speech intelligibility.
Durational Feature of Speech Segments in Children with Cochlear Implants
Union Wisconsin Room
Spoken language is acquired through hearing a language clearly and hearing oneself speak the language. This chain of learning can be broken by hearing impairments. The purpose of our research is to compare the durational feature of speech segments produced by prelingually deafened native Mandarin children with cochlear implants to those by Mandarin-speaking peers with normal hearing. The durational measurements were performed on a total of 10 native Mandarin children (4 with normal hearing and 6 with cochlear implants). A visual-auditory repetition task was used to elicit speech samples from the participants. Each child was shown a picture on a computer screen followed by an audio prompt produced by a Mandarin-speaking adult. Then each child was asked to repeat the target word. The speech materials included a list of Mandarin disyllabic words which contains 6 Mandarin affricates /ts, ts?, t?, t??, t?, t??/, five fricatives /f, s, ?, ?, x/ and seven Mandarin monophthongal vowels /a, i, u, y, ?, ?/ located in the first syllable of the words. Fricatives are speech sounds that are produced by forcing air through a narrow space, for example, an ‘f’ or a ‘v’ sound. An Affricate is a speech sound that is produced by blocking the airflow then releasing into a Fricative sound, such as the ‘ch’ sound. Vowel sounds are classified as sounds that have little restriction in the vocal tract, for instance, the ‘a’ sound in apple. Acoustic Analysis was performed to measure the duration of affricates, fricatives, and vowel sounds. . According to previous literature that showed deviations of speech characteristics in CI children relative to normal hearing children, we anticipate that the acoustic deviation will also be reflected in their duration features. The findings from this study will help researchers, clinicians, and teachers, better understand the speech production of children with CIs and thus develop a more targeted intervention plan to improve their speech intelligibility.
