Tetsuya YUASA

<p> This study was aimed at clarifying the characteristics of speech rate control in 131 students from the elementary, junior high, and high school sections of a special-needs school for the deaf. The students were asked to read sentences aloud at three different speeds, and the results were compared after performing an acoustic analysis of their speech. In regard to the total speech time, difference was observed only between fast and slow reading in hearing-aid wearers from the lower grades of elementary school, whereas in children of high school age, differences were seen for all three speeds. The speech was also compared by relative weighting of the phonation time and pause time, and it was found that the weighting of the pause time was significantly longer during slow speech than during fast speech in the following groups: the group from the lower elementary grades with cochlear implants (only); groups from the upper elementary grades with an 80-99 decibel range and implants; all groups from junior high school other than the group with the 79 decibels or lower range, and all the high-school children. Thus, the following was clarified: while pupils from lower elementary school find it difficult to regulate their speech rate, when they reach high school, regardless of their unaided hearing ability, they regulate their speech rate by shortening the phonation time and lengthening the pause time.</p>

<p> The participants of this study were ten people with profound hearing impairment (with 90dB or more, whose main medium of communication is speech) who attend a school for the deaf students from early years through high school age as well as ten people with normal hearing. The study investigated the duration of nasal phonemes (hatsuon) and how that duration is impacted by the phonetic environment.</p><p> Participants read aloud carrier text that incorporated words with nasal phonemes, allowing for acoustic analysis of the nasal phonemes. The analysis revealed no significant difference for those with normal hearing between per-mora duration for the whole text and the duration of the nasal phonemes. However, in people with profound hearing impairment, nasal phoneme duration was longer than per-mora duration for the entire text. In addition, nasal phoneme duration was shown to be longer in people with profound hearing impairment than in people with normal hearing. Furthermore, the fact that, when considering the different preceding vowel sounds, duration was short for "i" and "u" in people with normal hearing and profound hearing impairment indicates that the position of the tongue impacts the duration of the nasal phoneme.</p>

<p>This study compared self-evaluations of monosyllables pronounced by hearing-impaired persons and articulation intelligibility of monosyllable pronunciation in a total of 22 hearing-impaired students aged 18 to 24, 11 of whom attended a special needs education school for the deaf and 11 of whom attended general schools. The results clarified the following points. (1) Articulation intelligibility of monosyllable pronunciation ranged widely from 10% to 95%. (2) Self-assessment also had significant individual differences, ranging from 32% to 96%, with some students having confidence that almost all syllables were accurately communicated. (3) Many students had greater confidence in their ability to communicate syllables than their actual articulation intelligibility of monosyllable pronunciation. (4) There was no difference between the special needs education school for the deaf group and the general school group in articulation intelligibility of monosyllable pronunciation and self-assessment. Ordinary conversations are verbalization via continuous vocalization, leaving little room for monosyllabic utterances. Also, surrounding people have become used to the way in which hearing-impaired people make utterances. We inferred that a high self-assessment was achieved for these reasons.</p>

<p> This research was aimed at clarifying the speech rate characteristics and adjustment strategies of those with profound hearing impairment in whom spoken language is the primary means of communication and who attended special education needs schools. Acoustic analysis was used to compare the speech duration for three speech rate types between people with profound hearing impairment and people with normal hearing. The results showed that those with profound hearing impairment showed lower speech rates than those with normal hearing, although there was no difference in the pause time, indicating that those with profound hearing impairment spent more time on articulation. However, there was much variation among individuals; while some participants with profound hearing impairment exhibited speech similar to those with normal hearing, others experienced difficulty in speaking quickly. The study found that across different speech rates, comparison of speech time and pause time revealed that both those with normal hearing and those with profound hearing impairment used increases and decreases in intra-sentence and inter-sentence pause times as a strategy to adjust the speed of their speech.</p>

The purpose of this paper is to carry out continuous research on changes in the prosodic characteristics of the speech of children with profound hearing impairments, including pitch and speech rate. For this paper, we had a child with profound hearing impairment pronounce certain syllables at three different points in her development: third year of elementary school, sixth year of elementary school, and third year of high school, at which time we acoustically measured the speed of her speech and pitch. We identified an increase in speech rate at the third year high school phase compared to the third year elementary school phase. However, the speech rate had dropped by the time the child was in the sixth grade compared to the time they were in the third grade. The reasons for this are as follows: (1) the child was thinking hard as she read the text, and (2) she attempted to read the text clearly, the result was slow reading. In addition, pitch declined as the child grew older, such that her pitch approximated that of a girl of normal hearing by the time she was a third year high school student.

In elementary school level music classes for the deaf, along with boosting musical skills, the goal is also to train children to enjoy music and to love it; to this end they engage in numerous hand-on activities. This research considers music class planning and initiatives, referencing a questionnaire to music class teacher. The teacher was asked what they focused on most in music class, to which they responded that they wanted the children "to come to enjoy music." In addition, while considering whether or not each of the children was able to hear properly, they decided on musical activities with the following as the key points for achieving the goal of a fun music class: (1) securing visual information and supplemental teaching aids including lyric sheets, and (2) selection of instruments and sheet music enabling some degree of freedom of vocal expression for individual children.

<p>This research paper studied a pool of ten students with profound hearing impairments of 100dBHL or higher as well as ten hearing students with normal auditory capacity to ascertain speech and timing of pauses by having the subjects read out loud. Our results indicated that some of the students with profound hearing impairments had a faster speech rate than the students with normal auditory conditions. Even amongst those with profound hearing impairments of 100dBHL or more, there were differences between individuals, and a diversity of speech rates. In addition, the speech rates of students with profound hearing impairments indicated a large number of pauses within sentences. Pauses were also shorter than those of the students with normal auditory function. Our research clarified that the ratio of pause times in relation to overall speech was minimal. Based on the above evidence, amongst persons with profound hearing impairments using spoken language, we identified the presence of individuals with shorter times for articulatory movement in relation to syllables previously put forth as a topic of discussion. The rapidness of speech rate and shortness of pause timing represent possible causes behind ambiguity of speech in persons with profound hearing impairments.</p>