Chuang Hsiu-Feng, Yang Cheng-Chieh, Chi Lin-Yang, Weismer Gary, Wang Yu-Tsai
National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Int J Speech Lang Pathol. 2012 Apr;14(2):119-29. doi: 10.3109/17549507.2011.639391. Epub 2012 Jan 31.
The effects of the use of cochlear implant (CI) on speech intelligibility, speaking rate, and vowel formant characteristics and the relationships between speech intelligibility, speaking rate, and vowel formant characteristics for children are clinically important. The purposes of this study were to report on the comparisons for speaking rate and vowel space area, and their relationship with speech intelligibility, between 24 Mandarin-speaking children with CI and 24 age-sex-education level matched normal hearing (NH) controls. Participants were audio recorded as they read a designed Mandarin intelligibility test, repeated prolongation of each of the three point vowels /i/, /a/, and /u/ five times, and repeated each of three sentences carrying one point vowel five times. Compared to the NH group, the CI group exhibited: (1) mild-to-moderate speech intelligibility impairment; (2) significantly reduced speaking rate mainly due to significantly longer inter-word pauses and larger pause proportion; and (3) significantly less vowel reduction in the horizontal dimension in sustained vowel phonation. The limitations of speech intelligibility development in children after cochlear implantation were related to atypical patterns and to a smaller degree in vowel reduction and slower speaking rate resulting from less efficient articulatory movement transition.
使用人工耳蜗（CI）对儿童言语清晰度、语速以及元音共振峰特征的影响，以及言语清晰度、语速和元音共振峰特征之间的关系在临床上具有重要意义。本研究的目的是报告24名讲普通话的人工耳蜗植入儿童与24名年龄、性别、教育水平相匹配的正常听力（NH）对照儿童在语速和元音空间面积方面的比较，以及它们与言语清晰度的关系。参与者在阅读设计好的普通话清晰度测试材料时进行录音，对三个单元音/i/、/a/和/u/中的每一个进行五次重复延长，并对包含一个单元音的三个句子中的每一个进行五次重复。与NH组相比，CI组表现出：（1）轻度至中度的言语清晰度受损；（2）语速显著降低，主要是由于词间停顿明显更长且停顿比例更大；（3）在持续元音发声中，水平维度的元音弱化明显更少。人工耳蜗植入后儿童言语清晰度发展的局限性与非典型模式有关，且在较小程度上与元音弱化减少以及发音运动转换效率较低导致的语速较慢有关。
