Use of Frequency-Shifted/Time-Compressed Speech with Hearing-Impaired Children

Several electromechanical aids to education for hearing-impaired children have been studied. One method that has received minimal attention is that of frequency-shifted/time-compressed (FS/TC) speech. This study was designed to determine if intelligibility scores on a standard intelligibility measure for children, whereby the words on the test was modified by 35% FS/TC, would show improvement from a pre- to a post-testing session. Nine hearing-impaired children were presented a 0 and 35% FS/TC speech pretest, then trained for 15 days using 35% FS/TC speech signals, and subsequently were presented a 0 and 35% FS/TC speech post-test. A second group of 9 hearing-impaired children were presented similar pre- and post-tests, but were trained under a 0% FS/TC speech condition. The group trained under the 35% FS/TC speech condition showed score gains from the pre- to post-test session, whereas the 0% FS/TC speech group showed essentially no gains from the pre- to the post-test session. The potential application of FS/TC speech to the education of hearing-impaired children were discussed.