Speechreading Abilities of Young Deaf Children

Speechreading Abilities of Young Deaf Children Kathleen W. Green, M. A., Walter B. Green, Ph.D., and David W. Holmes, Ph.D. Experimental attempts to provide descriptive information concerning the speechreading performance of young hearingimpaired children have been limited. In fact, it is only recently that studies which systematically describe the speechreading performance of this population with respect to different types of stimuli have appeared. For example, Erber (1974) reported that spondee words were more easily speechread than monosyllabic words or nonspondee bisyllabic words. In a later study, Erber and McMahan (1976) reported that monosyllabic words were more easily speechread in isolation than in sentences and that animate nouns were more readily identified than inanimate nouns when used as the subject of a sentence. A description of speechreading performance with respect to word, phrase, and sentence stimuli has not been reported nor has a standardized instrument been used in the assessment of speechreading performance. The results and implications of such an investigation should be valuable to professionals concerned with the education and language development of young hearing-impaired children. The purpose of this investigation was to examine the speechreading performance of young hearingimpaired children as a function of the different stimulus material available on the Diagnostic Kathleen Green is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Speech and Theatre Arts at the State University College of Cortland in Cortland, New York. Dr. Green is an Associate Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York. Dr. Holmes is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Speech and Hearing Sciences of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Test of Speechreading (Myklebust & Neyhus, 1970). METHOD Subjects The subjects were 22 hearing-impaired children enrolled at a residential school for the deaf. Their mean age was 6.3 years (S.D. = 0.7 years). Hearing threshold level data for the better ear are presented in Table 1. Table 1. Mean Hearing Threshold Levels for the 22 Subjects. Frequency (Hz) Items 250" 500 1000 2000 4000 Mean 78dB 87 93 94 95 Standard deviation 12.7 14.6 14.3 15.2 17.6 °"No response" was assigned a dB value equal to the maximum output of the audiometer at each particular frequency. Materials The Diagnostic Test of Speechreading (Myklebust & Neyhus, 1970) was used to assess speechreading performance. It affords the examination of speechreading performance as a function of word, phrase, and sentence stimuli. The test was standardized on a sample taken from residential and day programs in a metropolitan area. Raw scores, standard scores, 906 A.A.D. I October 1980 Speechreading Abilities and percentile equivalents are available for word, phrase, sentence, phrase and sentence combined, and a total or composite score. An important feature of the test with respect to the present study is the recurrence of the stimulus items in the different section of the test. For example, the word "boot" appears in the word section of the test, in "ten black boots" in the phrase section, and in "the girl has new boots" in the sentence section. Procedure The Diagnostic Test of Speechreading was administered to each subject in accord with the procedures described in the test manual. Data Analysis A one-way repeated measures analysis of variance was computed in order to determine differences in speechreading performance across word, phrase, and sentence stimuli. Range tests (Student Newman-Keuls) were also computed to determine exactly which pair(s) of stimuli were significantly different. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION A repeated measures analysis of variance yielded an F ratio significant at the .01 level (Table 2). The Student Newman-Keuls test indicated that speechreading performance on word stimuli was significantly better than performance on either phrase or sentence stimuli. A feature of the Diagnostic Test of Speechreading is that words used in the word section also appear within the phrase and sentence section. The results of this study then indicated that words successfully speechread in isolation were not necessarily correctly identified when they appeared in phrases and sentences. Erber and McMahan (1976) reported similar results and Table 2. Analysis of Variance for the 22 Deaf Subjects for Word, Sentence, and Phrase Stimuli...