Ghayedlou Leila, Ahmadi Akram, Ghorbani Ali, Torabinezhad Farhad, Keyhani Mohammad Reza, Hashemi Seyed Basir
Department of Speech and Language Pathology, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Department of Speech Therapy, School of Rehabilitation, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, I.R, Iran.
Int J Pediatr Otorhinolaryngol. 2020 Sep;136:110142. doi: 10.1016/j.ijporl.2020.110142. Epub 2020 May 26.
Normal hearing system is an essential factor for accurate production of speech segments. It seems that cochlear implant prosthesis helps children with hearing impairment to speak more accurately than before receiving prosthesis. The current research aimed to compare the vowel duration in school-aged children with cochlear implants and that in children with normal hearing. Additionally, the performance of girls and boys in two groups were investigated.
A cross-sectional and descriptive-analytical study was carried out to compare the vowel duration in 9- to 12-year-old children with cochlear implant and those with normal hearing. Participants were 52 children who were matched by age and sex. We asked the children to read the target words with each word including one vowel and then participants' voice samples were recorded. Then, vowel duration was measured using Praat software. Finally, the vowel duration was compared between the two groups running independent sample t-test. The level of significance was (P < 0.05).
There was no statistically significant difference observed between the two groups in the mean values of the vowel duration for the six Persian vowels (P > 0.05). Also, no significant difference was found between boys and girls in the mean value of the vowel duration between the two groups (P > 0.05).
Persian vowels in school-aged children with cochlear implant and with typical hearing are produced with similar durations. This finding is probably related to the increased duration of using prosthesis in this age range and speech mode used to measure vowel duration in the present study.
正常听力系统是准确发出语音片段的重要因素。人工耳蜗似乎能帮助听力受损儿童比接受植入前更准确地说话。本研究旨在比较学龄期人工耳蜗植入儿童与正常听力儿童的元音时长。此外，还对两组中男孩和女孩的表现进行了调查。
开展了一项横断面描述性分析研究，以比较9至12岁人工耳蜗植入儿童与正常听力儿童的元音时长。研究对象为52名按年龄和性别匹配的儿童。我们要求儿童朗读目标单词，每个单词包含一个元音，然后录制参与者的语音样本。然后，使用Praat软件测量元音时长。最后，通过独立样本t检验比较两组的元音时长。显著性水平为（P < 0.05）。
两组在六个波斯语元音的元音时长平均值上未观察到统计学显著差异（P > 0.05）。此外，两组中男孩和女孩在元音时长平均值上也未发现显著差异（P > 0.05）。
学龄期人工耳蜗植入儿童和听力正常儿童发出波斯语元音的时长相似。这一发现可能与该年龄范围内使用人工耳蜗的时间增加以及本研究中用于测量元音时长的语音模式有关。
