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Hearing impairment and vowel production. A comparison between normally hearing, hearing-aided and cochlear implanted Dutch children

Verhoeven, J., Hide, O., De Maeyer, S. , Gillis, S. & Gillis, S. (2016). Hearing impairment and vowel production. A comparison between normally hearing, hearing-aided and cochlear implanted Dutch children. Journal of Communication Disorders, 59, pp. 24-39. doi: 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2015.10.007

Abstract

This study investigated the acoustic characteristics of the Belgian Standard Dutch vowels in children with hearing impairment and in children with normal hearing. In a balanced experimental design, the 12 vowels of Belgian Standard Dutch were recorded in three groups of children: a group of children with normal hearing, a group with a conventional hearing aid and a group with a cochlear implant. The formants, the surface area of the vowel space and the acoustic differentiation between the vowels were determined.
The analyses revealed that many of the vowels in hearing-impaired children showed a reduction of the formant values. This reduction was particularly significant with respect to F2. The size of the vowel space was significantly smaller in the hearing-impaired children. Finally, a smaller acoustic differentiation between the vowels was observed in children with hearing impairment. The results show that even after 5 years of device use, the acoustic characteristics of the vowels in hearing-assisted children remain significantly different as compared to their NH peers.

Publication Type: Article
Additional Information: © 2015, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Publisher Keywords: Hearing impairment; Vowel production
Subjects: P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics
Departments: School of Health & Psychological Sciences > Language & Communication Science
SWORD Depositor:
[thumbnail of Hearing Impairment.doc] Text - Accepted Version
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