A comparative study of vocal fundamental frequency in the speech of Japanese and American hearing-impaired children

Abstract

The mean fundamental frequency (F0) of 10 normal-hearing (NH) and 10 hearing-impaired (HI) Japanese-speaking children were compared to those of 10 NH and 10 HI American English-speaking children. Results indicated no difference in F0 between the NH groups; while the Japanese-speaking HI children exhibited a significantly higher mean F0 than English-speaking HI children. The HI Japanese-speaking children also exhibited significantly higher F0 values than the NH Japanese-speaking children. The influence of a language-specific difference in pitch application was assumed to be a contributing factor to the F0 differences between the HI groups.