Pitch deviancy and intelligibility of deaf speech

Area of Science:

• Audiology
• Speech-Language Pathology
• Linguistics

Background:

• Deaf speech intelligibility is affected by various production aspects.
• Pitch deviancy is a notable characteristic of speech in deaf individuals.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between pitch deviancy and other speech production factors influencing deaf speech intelligibility.
• To assess the impact of prosodic features and phoneme production on intelligibility in deaf children.

Main Methods:

• Assessed speech skills including pitch deviancy ratings, overall intelligibility ratings, production of prosodic features (stress, intonation, pause), and phoneme production.
• Categorized children based on phonation ability and pure tone averages (PTA).

Main Results:

• Children unable to sustain phonation (PTA > 90 dB) were consistently unintelligible.
• For other children, pitch deviancy, intelligibility, and hearing level showed variable relationships.
• High intercorrelations were found between prosodic feature production, phoneme production, and intelligibility.

Conclusions:

• Phonation ability is critical for intelligibility in deaf children.
• Prosodic and phonemic accuracy are key predictors of intelligibility in deaf speech, more so than pitch deviancy alone in some cases.