The effect of speech training experiences on speechreading skills of Chinese children with hearing impairment.

Speechreading contributes significantly to effective communication, and persons with hearing impairment (HI) may need to rely more on speechreading. However, whether they may benefit from training/practice to improve their speechreading performance remains unclear. In this study, we examine the effect of speech training on speechreading performance of children with HI in China, and how such effect, if any, may be influenced by age. Fifty-nine HI children with speech training experiences, and fifty-eight HI children without speech training experiences completed tasks measuring their ability to speechread Chinese at the linguistic levels of words, phrases, and sentences. The children ranged from 7 to 14 years old, and were divided into four age groups by two-year age intervals. Both accuracy rate and response time data were collected. Results revealed three findings: (1) HI children with speech training experiences speechread more accurately but more slowly than those without speech training experiences; (2) while speechreading performance generally improved with age, age didn't alter the relative performance between the two groups; and (3) speechreading performance was best for phrases, and worst for sentences. These findings suggest that HI children benefit from speech training to improve their speechreading performance, and their speechreading performance is influenced by age, linguistic level, and the specific measure used.