ASSESSMENT OF THE PERCEPTION OF INTONATION BY SEVERELY AND PROFOUNDLY HEARING-IMPAIRED CHILDREN.
Item
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Title
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ASSESSMENT OF THE PERCEPTION OF INTONATION BY SEVERELY AND PROFOUNDLY HEARING-IMPAIRED CHILDREN.
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Identifier
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AAI8601679
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identifier
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8601679
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Creator
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MOST, TOVA M.
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Contributor
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Arthur Boothroyd
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Date
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1985
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Health Sciences, Audiology
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Abstract
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Thirty severely and profoundly hearing-impaired children and ten normal-hearing children, of two age groups (3-4 years and 5-10 years) were presented with synthetic speech stimuli consisting of flat, rising and falling intonation contours carried by each of two vowels and each of two syllabic patterns. The same stimuli were used in two tests of intonation perception. The first involved an imitative task in which subjects had to imitate the stimulus. The second involved a forced-choice task in which subjects had to select the different contour out of three stimuli. The imitations in the first task were tape recorded for subsequent rating by five trained listeners on a ten-point scale.;Among the older children ((GREATERTHEQ)5 years), all the severely hearing impaired (3 frequency average loss (LESSTHEQ)90dBHL) and about 50% of the profoundly hearing impaired (3 frequency average loss >90dBHL) passed both the forced-choice and the imitative tasks. Among the younger children (<4 years), the proportions passing the imitative task were the same as in the older group. Only one severely hearing-impaired younger child, however, was able to pass the forced-choice task. The fact that the forced-choice task was too difficult for the younger age group was confirmed by the performance of the normal-hearing children.;The imitation scores were bimodally distributed. The pure tone average was a good, but not perfect, predictor of imitation performance. In general, children with hearing loss less than 90dB had moderate and high scores, and those with hearing loss greater than 110dB had very low scores. Imitation scores for children within the 91-110dB range of hearing loss, however, varied from low to high.;The findings suggest that imitation of intonation contours is a cognitively appropriate task for children as young as three years of age, and it provides useful information on the ability to perceive at least one frequency-dependent feature of the acoustic speech signal. These data suggest that there is a high probability of the capacity for perception of intonation in children with hearing losses up to 110dB. The findings further indicate that conclusions about presence or absence of auditory capacity cannot be made until an adequate amount of training has been provided.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Speech & Hearing
