Evaluation of cochlear implanted children's voices

Cochlear implant (CI) is a good means in developing communication in deaf children. Nevertheless, compared to children with the same age, CI patients' voices are far from being similar. In this work, the voice of CI children has been compared with the voice of corresponding normal children (same age, same sex) included in the main stream. Six girls and two boys participated to the experiment. The phonetic material was a paragraph of the French standard text La bise et le soleil (The North Wind and the Sun). An objective and a subjective analysis of the voice were done and parameters were compared between both groups of people (implantees and control). Studied parameters were voice pitch, intensity, fluency, pauses, articulation and pleasantness in the objective analysis, and voice pitch, formants, and duration for the objective study. It appeared that intensity variations were different between control and implanted subjects. Also voice formants were not situated in the same region regarding the normal ranges, but differences were difficult to assess. Globally, the main change was in the speaking duration. This method is open for further studies and points out some relevant items for an efficient use in rehabilitation sessions.