Objective: The overall goal of this study was to determine
the accuracy with which hearing-impaired children
can detect the inflectional morphemes /s/ and /z/
when listening to speech through hearing aids.
Design: In the first part of the study a perceptual
test was developed with equal numbers of singular
and plural nouns spoken by both a male and female
talker. Thirty-six normal-hearing children (3 to 5
yr) were tested to determine the age at which children
could perform this test without difficulty. In
the second part of the study, 40 children with bilateral
sensorineural hearing losses (5 to 13 yr) were
tested while wearing personal hearing aids. Stimuli
were presented in the sound field at 65 dB SPL.
Results: For the normal-hearing children, mean performance
increased and inter-subject variability decreased
through age 5 yr 3 mo when performance
reached >90% for all children. No significant talker or
form (plural versus singular) effects were noted for this
group. For the hearing-impaired children, performance
varied considerably across all ages. For these subjects,
significant effects of talker and form were observed.
Specifically, plural test items spoken by the female
talker showed the highest error rate.
Conclusions: In general, mid-frequency audibility (2
to 4 kHz) appeared to be most important for perception
of the fricative noise for the male talker while a
somewhat wider frequency range (2 to 8 kHz) was
important for the female talker......
(CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE WHOLE TEXT)
the accuracy with which hearing-impaired children
can detect the inflectional morphemes /s/ and /z/
when listening to speech through hearing aids.
Design: In the first part of the study a perceptual
test was developed with equal numbers of singular
and plural nouns spoken by both a male and female
talker. Thirty-six normal-hearing children (3 to 5
yr) were tested to determine the age at which children
could perform this test without difficulty. In
the second part of the study, 40 children with bilateral
sensorineural hearing losses (5 to 13 yr) were
tested while wearing personal hearing aids. Stimuli
were presented in the sound field at 65 dB SPL.
Results: For the normal-hearing children, mean performance
increased and inter-subject variability decreased
through age 5 yr 3 mo when performance
reached >90% for all children. No significant talker or
form (plural versus singular) effects were noted for this
group. For the hearing-impaired children, performance
varied considerably across all ages. For these subjects,
significant effects of talker and form were observed.
Specifically, plural test items spoken by the female
talker showed the highest error rate.
Conclusions: In general, mid-frequency audibility (2
to 4 kHz) appeared to be most important for perception
of the fricative noise for the male talker while a
somewhat wider frequency range (2 to 8 kHz) was
important for the female talker......
(CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE WHOLE TEXT)
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