Gulian E, Fallside F, Hinds P, Keiller C
Br J Audiol. 1983 Nov;17(4):219-31. doi: 10.3109/03005368309081483.
The ability of severely deaf school children to master fricative production and the fricative-affricate distinction was studied over a period of 6 months. The children were given daily speech therapy and half of them received, in addition, visual feedback from a microprocessor-based speech training aid - the 'Fricative and Timing Aid'. The speech of a third group of children, who received no training from us, was also monitored. Results were analysed in terms of the acquisition of fricatives and affricates, and of their position in a word. Results yielded by perceptual tests showed a substantial increase in the intelligibility of all trained children for almost all phonemes at the end of the training programme. Retention scores, i.e. intelligibility scores obtained by re-testing the children after a 2-moth period of non-practice, showed that practically no forgetting of articulatory skills occurred during this interval. Comparisons between children trained with or without visual feedback in general showed no difference between them; however, the former were more intelligible when producing affricates. No improvement in intelligibility was found when no systematic speech training was available. It was concluded that while frication may not be acquired spontaneously, it is a task within the reach of severely deaf children when adequately trained.
对重度失聪学童掌握擦音发音及擦音与塞擦音区别的能力进行了为期6个月的研究。这些孩子每天接受言语治疗，其中一半还额外获得了基于微处理器的言语训练辅助工具——“擦音与计时辅助工具”的视觉反馈。还对第三组未接受我们训练的孩子的言语进行了监测。从擦音和塞擦音的习得情况及其在单词中的位置方面对结果进行了分析。感知测试得出的结果显示，在训练计划结束时，所有接受训练的孩子几乎对所有音素的可懂度都有大幅提高。保持分数，即在两个月不练习后对孩子重新测试所获得的可懂度分数，表明在此期间发音技能几乎没有遗忘。总体而言，接受或未接受视觉反馈训练的孩子之间的比较显示他们之间没有差异；然而，前者在发塞擦音时更易懂。当没有系统的言语训练时，可懂度没有提高。得出的结论是，虽然擦音发音可能不会自发习得，但在经过充分训练后，对于重度失聪儿童来说这是一项能够完成的任务。
