Syllabic Complexity and its Relation to Speech Intelligibility in a Deaf Population

Syllabic structures produced by 11 severely to profoundly hearing-impaired adolescents were analyzed in terms of three models of syllabic complexity: the traditional model, MacKay's (1974) model, and Kent's (1976) model. A positive correlation was found between complexity according to the three models and error rate. Errors showed a substantial tendency to reduce complexity in each of the models at a highly significant level. Although these conclusions were true for all three of the models, this study suggests that the Kent model and the traditional model are more directly related to the data with this kind of hearing-impaired population than the MacKay model. Positive correlation was also found between intelligibility measurements (National Technical Institute for the Deaf rating scale and the Speech Intelligibility Evaluation) and correct syllabic production.