| Abstract: |
Five profoundly hearing-impaired children were taught consonants using palatometry. Changes in linguapalatal contact patterns and listener perceptions showed significant improvement in the place and manner of consonants produced by all subjects. Velar stops were as easily and accurately learned as alveolar stops. Distinctive sibilants were also found by the end of training. Sounds not previously present in a subject's phonetic repertoire were learned more accurately than those present by inaccurate prior to therapy. Voicing errors persisted. Two of the subjects showed evidence of newly established, unsolicited coarticulated movements. The results indicated that visual articulatory modeling and feedback of linguapalatal contact patterns is an effective means of teaching consonants and improving speech intelligibility. |
