Preoperative voice parameters affect the postoperative speech intelligibility in patients with cochlear implantation

Verbal communication depends on a good function of voice and speech organs. Some of the voice characteristics of deaf people differ considerably from those of speakers with normal hearing. After cochlear implantation (CI), auditory control of voice production is possible and the quality of the voice is improved. CI improves quality of voice, speech and hearing with deafness. The aim of our study was to investigate the relationship between acoustic analysis before CI and the speech intelligibility before and after CI.

Twelve prelingually deafened children implanted unilaterally at the age of 3.4-9 years were included in the study. For all of the children an acoustic analysis of the Slovene vowel 'a' was performed before CI. The fundamental frequency (F0), jitter, shimmer and noise-to-harmonic ratio (NHR) were studied before the implantation. For all of the children the speech intelligibility was performed before and 12 months after CI. Preoperative hearing was divided on existing residual hearing. The results of the acoustic analyses and speech intelligibility before and after CI were compared for preoperative hearing. The results of the speech intelligibility were compared for the age of operation and preoperative acoustic analysis (F0, jitter, shimmer, NHR).

Preoperative hearing had no influence on preoperative voice analysis. The children with residual hearing had a high grade of speech intelligibility before and after CI. The preoperative shimmer had positive correlation with postoperative 12 month speech intelligibility (r=0.618, P=0.032). The preoperative jitter had positive correlation with postoperative 12 month speech intelligibility, but was not statistically significant (r=0.479, P=0.116).

Shimmer on preoperative voice analyses had influence on speech intelligibility after CI.