Effects of Listener's Experience, Severity of Speaker's Articulation, and Linguistic Cues on Speech Intelligibility in Congenitally Deafened Adults with Cochlear Implants

청자의 경험, 화자의 조음 중증도, 단서 유형이 인공와우이식 선천성 농 성인의 말명료도에 미치는 영향

  • 이영미 (이화여자대학교 대학원 언어병리학과) ;
  • 성지은 (이화여자대학교 대학원 언어병리학과) ;
  • 박정미 (이화여자대학교 대학원 언어병리학과) ;
  • 심현섭 (이화여자대학교 대학원 언어병리학과)
  • Received : 2011.02.04
  • Accepted : 2011.03.24
  • Published : 2011.03.31

Abstract

The current study investigated the effects of experience of deaf speech, severity of speaker's articulation, and linguistic cues on speech intelligibility of congenitally deafened adults with cochlear implants. Speech intelligibility was judged by 28 experienced listeners and 40 inexperienced listeners using a word transcription task. A three-way (2 $\times$ 2 $\times$ 4) mixed design was used with the experience of deaf speech (experienced/inexperienced listener) as a between-subject factor, the severity of speaker's articulation (mild to moderate/moderate to severe), and linguistic cues (no/phonetic/semantic/combined) as within-subject factors. The dependent measure was the number of correctly transcribed words. Results revealed that three main effects were statistically significant. Experienced listeners showed better performance on the transcription than inexperienced listeners, and listeners were better in transcribing speakers who were mild to moderate than moderate to severe. There were significant differences in speech intelligibility among the four different types of cues, showing that the combined cues provided the greatest enhancement of the intelligibility scores (combined > semantic > phonological > no). Three two-way interactions were statistically significant, indicating that the type of cues and severity of speakers differentiated experienced listeners from inexperienced listeners. The current results suggested that the use of a combination of linguistic cues increased the speech intelligibility of congenitally deafened adults with cochlear implants, and the experience of deaf speech was critical especially in evaluating speech intelligibility of severe speakers compared to that of mild speakers.

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