Original Research Article
Year: 2019 | Month: August | Volume: 9 | Issue: 8 | Pages: 97-102
Vowel Space Area in Speech of Children with Hearing Impairment
Narasimhan. S. V1, Dr. Nataraja. N. P2
1Reader, Dept. of Speech & Language Pathology, JSS Institute of Speech & Hearing, Mysuru, Karnataka, India
2Director & Professor, Dept. of Speech & Language Pathology, JSS Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysuru, Karnataka, India
Corresponding Author: Narasimhan. S. V
ABSTRACT
Background: Hearing impairment either congenital or prelingualmarked effects on the articulatory movements. Children with hearing impairment have problems in coordination of tongue and jaw movements and can be analysed acoustically by constructing vowel space area. Even though some studies on vowel space area in speech of children with hearing impairment have been carried out, most of these studies are hardly conclusive.
Aim of the study: The present study aimed at documenting the difference across formant frequencies and vowel working space area between children with hearing impairment and age-matched control subjects.
Method: Two groups of subjects participated in the study. Group 1 comprised of 30 children with hearing impairment and group 2 comprised of 30 age-matched normal hearing children. Phonation samples of vowels /a/, /i/ and /u/ was recorded and formant frequencies were extracted. Further, the vowel triangle area was also calculated.
Results: The results showed that there was a significant difference in formant frequency values between the subjects of group 1 and group 2. It was also noted that the vowel space area entailing vowels /a/, /i/ and /u/ of group 1 individuals was significantly reduced when compared to group 2. Thus, the results demonstrated more restricted tongue movements in subjects of group 1.
Conclusion: Further studies ought to focus on the correlation of the reduced vowel space area and the speech intelligibility measures to assist therapy outcomes to improve speech intelligibility in children with hearing impairment.
Key words: Vowel space area, Formant frequencies, Vowel triangle area, Hearing impairment