Speech Characteristics in Individuals With Auditory Dys-Synchrony

Abstract

The present study was aimed to examine the effects of longstanding Auditory dys-synchrony (AD) on speech production. Speech production of 12 individuals with acquired long-term AD was characterized and compared against that of 20 age matched individuals with normal hearing sensitivity. It was hypothesized that any difference between the two groups in their speech production will because of long standing perceptual deficits due to AD. Long-term AD was operationally defined as AD for more than 5 years. The study was carried out in 2 phases; Phase 1 included the perceptual analysis of speech of adults with long-term AD, and the phase 2 included acoustic analysis of the same speech samples. Results showed that speech of individual with AD was abnormal on perceptual as well as acoustical analysis. The extent of deficit in speech production correlated well with the speech identification scores. These results highlight the importance of auditory feedback in maintaining the speech production skills. The results show a close relationship between speech perception and production skills in turn supporting the closed loop models of speech production. There was also evidence of compensatory strategies in production that could be associated with the perceptual deficit.