Objective measurement of prosodic features of speech of hearing-impaired Egyptian children with cochlear implants

Abstract

Abstract Background Prosody is an important acoustic and linguistic component of speech that greatly contributes to speech intelligibility. Speech of hearing-impaired children shows various deviations from their normal-hearing counterparts due to complex physiological mechanisms. Methods Acoustic analysis of the prosodic production of hearing-impaired, cochlear-implanted, Egyptian children, and comparing them to a normal group of normal-hearing peers, using objective measures. Cases group included 30 hearing-impaired verbal children from the age of 6 to 10 years using cochlear implant devices. The controls group included 30 normal-hearing children within the same age range. Recording and analysis of both groups’ speech samples were done using real-time pitch software, generic syllabic rate, and intonation stimulability software. Results Significant differences were found between the two studied groups where decreased pitch range, increased loudness variability, increased pause duration, and decreased syllabic rate were found in hearing-impaired children. Conclusion Prosodic differences between hearing-impaired children with cochlear implants and normal-hearing children could be measured objectively giving a numeric profile that could be used as a measure to monitor the progress of their speech with therapy.

Keywords

• Prosody
• Hearing impairment
• Cochlear implant
• Acoustic analysis
• Objective measures