Deaf speakers' laryngeal behavior.

The purpose of this study was to compare deaf speakers' (n = 4) laryngeal behavior during voiced and voiceless consonant productions to that of normal hearing subjects (n = 4). Laryngeal behavior during these two speaker groups' productions of six word-initial stop plosives (/b d g p t k/) and fricatives (/v z delta f s pheta/) was visually observed by means of a flexible fiberoptic nasolaryngoscope (fiberscope). The visualizations and their acoustic correlates were audiovisually recorded. The audiovisual recordings were analyzed by means of both frame-by-frame categorical judgments of laryngeal behavior and broad phonetic transcriptions of the accuracy/inaccuracy of consonantal voicing. Results indicated that deaf speakers' laryngeal behavior during production of those consonants perceived as accurately voiced was comparable to that of normal speakers, whereas deaf speakers' laryngeal behavior during production of consonants perceived as inaccurately voiced generally differed in various ways from normal. Findings seem to suggest that some aspects of deaf speakers' atypical laryngeal behavior associated with inaccurately voiced consonants may be due to an aberrant linguistic system while other aspects may be due to inadequate laryngeal motor control.