Suprasegmentals of deaf speech: Influence of hearing aid in a case study
Claude Simon · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1979
The deaf subject in this study wears a frequency transposing aid described elsewhere [H. Halperin, J. Cullen, C. Berlin, and M. Killion, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 62, S76(A) (1977)]. The method of speech data collection is described in the preceding paper (M. J. Collins, see Abstract 28). Laryngeal vibrations were recorded with the use of an electrical method known as the laryngograph. The suprasegmental characteristics of the speech are compared for the aided and the unaided conditons, in particular, the statistical properties of F0 frequency distributions and the dynamic features of F0 contours. A first examination of the recordings revealed marked differences between aided and unaided conditions in this speaker. In the unaided condition, F0 is consistently higher than in the aided condition. In the unaided condition, the F0 range is reduced and the dynamic features are less marked (rises and falls not so sharp) and less contrasted (used less consistently) than in the aided condition. These first results confirm those obtained in a previous related study of the use of suprasegmental features by deaf children [C. Simon, T. Gold, and H. Levitt, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 62, S6(A) (1977)]. The detailed nature of the opening and closing movements of the vocal folds is also discussed for both aided and unaided conditons.