The influence of contextual information on the perception of speech by postlingually and prelingually profoundly hearing-impaired Hebrew-speaking adolescents and adults.
OBJECTIVE
To study linguistic context effects on speech perception by prelingually (N = 10) and postlingually (N = 10) hearing-impaired Hebrew-speaking adolescents and adults.


METHODS
Participants were cochlear implant surgery candidates with profound sensorineural hearing loss (95 dB HL+). Four levels of speech perception materials were presented through the auditory-visual modality: monosyllabic nonsense syllables (phonological content), monosyllabic meaningful words (semantic-lexical), sentences without presented topics (semantic-syntactic), and sentences with topics (topical). Data were analyzed via percentage correct recognition and via k andj factors (Boothroyd & Nittrouer, 1988).


RESULTS
Both participant groups performed better when speech material having more contextual information was presented, with no significant intergroup differences.


CONCLUSIONS
This similar usage of contextual information among prelingually and postlingually hearing-impaired participants is encouraging and suggests the role of factors other than age of onset.
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Special Education and Department of Communication Disorders, Tel-Aviv University, Israel.
Adi-Bensaid
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D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006319:Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D012660:Semantics; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D014825:Vocabulary