The effects of three feedback modes on the ability of normal geriatric individuals to match speaking rate

The present study investigated the effects of three feedback modes (visual-verbal, verbal-quantitative, and verbal-qualitative) on the ability of 30 normal geriatric individuals to match three different speaking rates (slow, average, and fast). Ten subjects were randomly assigned to each feedback condition. Each subject was instructed to produce the stimulus phrase, Buy Bobby a doughnut, at each of the three speaking rates. Subjects in the visual-verbal mode received both visual feedback of the utterance duration via a PM Trainer and verbal feedback from the experimenter indicating the subject's accuracy in matching the specified speaking rate. Feedback during the verbal-quantitative condition consisted of verbal information indicating the subject's accuracy in matching each speaking rate. The verbal-qualitative condition consisted of verbal feedback relative to the subject's ability to match speaking rate, although the feedback was less precise than in the other conditions. Results suggest that visual-verbal and verbal-quantitative feedback lead to significantly better performance than verbal-qualitative feedback in matching speaking rate, particularly when the task becomes more difficult. These results have implications for the training of a similar task in speech-disordered populations.