Air volumes during connected speech of normal-hearing and hearing-impaired adults

Aerodynamic characteristics were investigated in connected discourse of normal-hearing and orally trained hearing-impaired adults. Subjects read sentences of various lengths and produced a spontaneous speech sample. Utterances were sensed by a pneumotachograph and recorded oscillographically and by audiotape. Inspiratory and expiratory volumes and expiratory time were measured. Word intelligibility was judged. Hearing-impaired subjects displayed greater ranges of air volumes and expiratory time. From sentence to spontaneous conditions, intelligibility varied systematically with expiratory volume.