Comparative Study of the Correlation between the Perceptual Speech and Fundamental Frequency in Deaf Children with Cochlear Implants

Document Type : Original article

Authors

1 Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation Research Center, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran

2 Department of Speech Therapy, School of Rehabilitation, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran

3 Khuzestan Cochlear Implant Center, Ahvaz, Iran

4 Department of Speech Therapy, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran

5 Department of Statistics and Epidemiology, School of Health, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran

Abstract

Background and Aims: Background and Aim: Speech intelligibility depends on different segmental and suprasegmental speech parametrs, such as accuracy of production, intonation, voice quality, and resonance. The investigation on speech intelligibility evaluation is performed using two methods: perceptual and acoustic. In perceptual method, speech intelligibility is investigated based on the listeners' judgement and in acoustic method, acoustic parameters related to speech are studied. The purpose of the present study was to obtain the correlation between average frequency in words and percentage of speech intelligibility in children with cochlear implant.
Materials and Methods: The present study was carried out on 18 children, aged 4-6 years, with cochlear implant. Perceptual evaluation was performed by the judgment of the listeners who were not familiar with the speech of the hearing impaired children. The evaluation was carried out based on the speech intelligibility words test in Persian language. Calculation of the frequency was done using Praat software, 5.2.25 version.
Results: The results of the acoustic analysis showed that the average of the frequency in population studied was 294/2± 45/05 and the average of the percentage of speech intelligibility was 47/87+20/33. According to the obtained correlation factor, there is an inverse relationship between these two factors. However, considering the significance level more than 0.5, the correlation was not found to be significant.
Conclusion: Due to the lack of correlation between the percentages of perception of speech intelligibility and fundamental frequency, as one of the suprasegmental features of speech, according to the findings of the present study, it can be concluded that despite the effect of chain factors, such as production, as shown in some studies, this parameter does not have a significant effect on these children's speech intelligibility.

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References

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The Scientific Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine
Volume 7, Issue 1
March and April 2018
Pages 138-145

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History

  • Receive Date: 19 November 2016
  • Revise Date: 03 April 2017
  • Accept Date: 17 June 2017
  • First Publish Date: 21 March 2018

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