Initial Consonant Intelligibility by Hearing-Impaired Children

Abstract

The Fairbanks Rhyme Test was presented to 12 hearing-impaired children, ages 10–16, to obtain information on the intelligibility of initial consonants in monosyllabic words. All five forms of the rhyme test were presented randomly at five sensation levels (10, 15, 20, 30, and 40 dB) to generate intelligibility gain functions. The degree of amplification produced differential effects on the intelligibility of the 14 initial phonemes studied. Increases in gain substantially improved the intelligibility of the phonemes /d, b, k, p, t/. The phoneme /g/ showed a substantial intelligibility gain but not in a similar fashion to the rest of the stop phonemes. Although the nasal consonants /m/ and /n/ showed equivalent intelligibility gains to that of the stops, they achieved their maximum intelligibility level within the intensity range studied. The phoneme /l/ showed an intelligibility gain function similar to that of the nasal phonemes. The phonemes /s/ and /r/, while highly intelligible throughout all conditions, showed only slight improvement as a function of intensity. Finally, intensity had no systematic effect on the intelligibility of /f/, /h/, and /w/.