Abstract
Respiratory volume and airflow characteristics associated with oral reading were examined for 12 females with profound hearing losses and 16 females with normal hearing. The deaf's results of respirometric analyses were further correlated with degree of hearing loss, overall speech proficiency, and breathiness. The results indicated that the deaf subjects as a group exhibited different speech breathing patterns in comparison with those of the normal-hearing subjects. The speech respiration of the deaf was characterized by (1) high air consumption manifested as high air expenditure per syllable, high average exhalatory airflow rates, and high peak airflow rates, (2) frequent inspirations, (3) inspirations at linguistically inappropriate places, (4) short duration of exhalation, and (5) sizable within-group variability. These characteristics of the deaf's speech respiration were especially prominent among the most profoundly deaf subjects. Correlational analyses revealed that more frequent breath taking during reading seemed to adversely affect overall speech proficiency while high air consumption was closely related to a breathy voice quality.
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