Fundamental frequency of speech directed to children who have hearing loss

Abstract

Studies of child-directed speech (CDS) have shown that when talking to children, parents systematically use (among other strategies) increased fundamental frequency (F0). Lombard effects such as increased F0 have also been documented when addressing a listener who is hard-of-hearing (HH). Here, we examine F0 of mothers and fathers in families with HH versus typically developing (TD) children in CDS and adult-directed speech (ADS) contexts. Whole-day audio recordings were collected by a child-worn audio recorder and analyzed by automatic speech recognition (ASR) software to identify segments of vocal activity by children and their parents (LENA Research Foundation, Boulder, CO). Custom software extracted F0 values in all conditions. We found that (1) mothers are much more systematic in their use of CDS than fathers, (2) parents do not appear to be sensitive to the hearing status of their children, and (3) parents of HH children may have higher overall F0 irrespective of CDS or ADS. Results suggest that mothers and fathers do not use F0 with their children in the same way, and parents of children with hearing loss may have certain global F0 characteristics not shared by parents of TD children.