[On the improvement of discrimination of vibration stimuli by training in late aquired deafness (author's transl)].
Acoustic signals of low frequencies can be percepted by the tactile sense as vibrations to a limited extent. In educating deaf children one takes trouble to combine tactile and visual speech perception in order to improve speech discrimination. The question of this study was, whether an improvement of tactile discrimination can be achieved even by patients with late aquired deafness. In a 45 years old female patient who had become deaf after adolescence the tactile discrimination of instrumental sounds (electric organ) within the frequency area c3-c4 (131-262 cps) as well as of speech sounds (30 mono- and multisyllabic words) was trained by means of the SIEMENS-Fonator. After two training courses of ten hours each (à 45 min) the patient was not only able to recognize pitch differences of two half steps and more as well as the tones of the scale with few errors only, but could also identify the words to a high percentage; in monosyllables she reached an identification rate of 75.6% and in words with 3 syllables of 85%. Additionally, a marked improvement of speech discrimination by lip reading was observed when using the Fonator. Accordingly, even in patients with late aquired deafness it appears to be worthwhile to train the tactile discrimination of vibration stimuli as to support lip reading.
D002648:Child; D003638:Deafness / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D010897:Pitch Discrimination; D013067:Speech Perception; D014110:Touch; D014732:Vibration
Zur Trainierbarkeit der Diskriminationsleitstung für Vibrationsreize beim Spätertaubten.