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Comparing abilities of children with profound hearing impairments to learn consonants using electropalatography or traditional aural-oral techniques.

Two groups of nine children with profound hearing impairments and low intelligibility were taught to produce the consonants /t,d,k,g,s,z,S/ using either electropalatographic (palatometry) or traditional aural-oral techniques. Testing was completed pre-, immediately post-, and 6 months post-treatment by examining productions of CV syllables (V = /i,a/) using electropalatography-determined linguapalatal contacts and listener identifications. Intelligibility was also measured using the CID Picture Speech Intelligibility Evaluation (SPINE) test. Both groups improved their consonant productions as a result of 26 50-minute sessions. Sessions were given twice daily over 3- to 4-week training periods. Immediately post-treatment, the electropalatography-trained subjects produced better consonants as measured by linguapalatal contact patterns and listener identifications. The linguapalatal-contact patterns learned by the electropalatography-trained group better matched normal speaker productions than did those of the traditionally trained group. Both groups showed equal improvement for both post-treatment conditions when tested with the CID SPINE test. Although further research is needed, the results of this study suggest that electropalatographic techniques are, at least, equal alternatives to traditional aural-oral speech training techniques for speakers with profound hearing impairments.