Do we understand the speech of deaf adolescents? An evaluation and comparison of the intelligibility in two similar research projects from 1979 and 1995.
The intelligibility of the speech of orally educated deaf pupils was the subject of a research project conducted in Norway in 1979. The sample consisted of all 15 adolescents from the 7th, 8th and 9th grades of a school that offered boarding accommodation. The pupils were videotaped as they uttered pre-constructed phrases. Normal hearing adults evaluated the speech. Some pupils were understood, while the speech of others was practically impossible to decipher. On average, about half of the words were understood. In the 1980s, teaching through sign language became common and articulation training became rare. To see if this change in teaching method reduced the intelligibility of oral speech, a replication study was conducted in 1995. The results of the two studies, however, were very similar.
Kvam
M H
MH
SINTEF Unimed Health Research Institute, Olso, Norway. Marit.H.Kvam@unimed.sintef.no
Bredal
U J
UJ
D000293:Adolescent; D003071:Cognition; D003638:Deafness; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013064:Speech Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis; D013065:Speech Intelligibility