Assessing sentence repetition and narrative speech data produced by hearing-impaired and normally hearing children

This paper examines sentence repetition and narrative speech data produced by hearing-impaired and normally hearing children with matched gender, age and level of speech comprehension. We assessed these two kinds of speech styles by talker intelligibility, vowel space, and spike production in plosives. In both speaking styles, normally hearing children performed better in talker intelligibility than their hearingimpaired counterparts. No clear vowel space shrinkage was observed in respect of speech style, hearing impairment, and age group. Surprisingly, the production of the spike in plosives was a useful measure for distinguishing acoustic properties of different speaking styles and hearing ability.