Some characteristics of oral air flow for fricative consonants produced by hearing‐impaired speakers

Abstract

The average volume velocities of oral air flow during production of fricative consonants by ten normal‐hearing, ten moderately to severely hearing‐impaired and ten profoundly‐deaf adult males were investigated. Air flow was measured during production of CV and VCV syllables consisting of the vowel /a/ and the consonants /z/, /s/, /v/, and /f/. All hearing‐impaired and deaf subjects had congenital hearing losses and were able to intelligibly produce the syllables. The results indicated that for all three groups of subjects, in both syllable environments, the voiceless fricatives were characterized by greater oral air flow than their voiced cognates. In addition, in both the CV and VCV contexts, the average individual flow rates associated with each of the four fricatives were similar for the normal‐hearing and hearing‐impaired groups. With respect to the deaf subjects, however, the average individual flow rates for each of the four fricatives were significantly greater in the CV context and significantly less in the VCV context, when compared with the normal‐hearing and hearing‐impaired subjects. [Work supported by HEW.]