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Introduction |
Student
1 is an unintelligible female speaker with a very limited
phonetic repertoire, severe pitch and loudness problems
and little residual hearing. During 12+ years of speech
therapy prior to entry to NTID she had never addressed voice/pitch
production. She was not using amplification when she sought
speech-language services but expressed a willingness to
explore the use of hearing aids and computerized visual
feedback equipment to facilitate instruction, practice and
self-monitoring. Student 1 made modest gains in pitch control,
speech sound production and intelligibility after 20 hours
of individual instruction. She remains motivated to improve
speech/voice and will continue for a 3rd ten-week session
of speech-language therapy. |
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 Student
Age: 23 years |
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Degree
of deafness/PTA: severe to profound sensorineural
loss bilaterally; PTA RE 107dB, LE 108dB |
Etiology:
maternal rubella |
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Age
of onset/Date of detection: birth/unknown
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Use
of amplification: body aids from ages 2-7; binaural
BTE's from ages 7-18; no use of amplification from ages
18-23; has binaural BTE's and agreed to bring them to NTID
for hearing aid check and potential use in speech-language
therapy classes
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Speech-language
therapy history: individual speech therapy sessions
in school from ages 3.5 to 15 or 16; worked on phoneme accuracy
with IBM SpeechViewer in high school; did not work on voice
(pitch or loudness)
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Educational
history: oral deaf school from ages 3.5 to 6; started
in special education program in mainstreamed elementary
school in first grade using SEE method; attended deaf high
school using ASL and English signs |
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Preferred
mode of communication: simultaneous speech and
signs; lives in French-speaking Quebec, Canada, with relatives
who use English with her |
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Diagnostic
Results |
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Speech Intelligibility
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Voice (Qualitative) |
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NTID
Voice Evaluation Severe vocal tension which
at times results in inability to sustain phonation; severe
problem coordinating respiration and phonation; severe problem
with prosody (blending and co-articulation); loudness was
much below appropriate intensity levels. |
Voice
(Quantitative) |
Kay
Visi-Pitch III: Mean pitch on sustained /i/ = 287 Hz, sustained
/a/ = 170 Hz, read words = 207 Hz, read sentences = 216
Hz, conversations = 272Hz; Minimum pitch = 119 Hz; Maximum
pitch = 400 Hz |
Speech/Voice
(Comprehensive)
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Fisher-Logemann
Test of Articulation Competence:
total score = 271 (out of a possible 600) for a percentile
ranking below 30% for her age and degree of hearing loss;
correct number of syllables in words = 83%; correct word
stress = 39%; correct intonation = 17%; pitch control =
35% due to frequent inappropriate pitch elevation at the
end of words and/or high average pitch |
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Articulation
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Language
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