Effect of Listening Training in Perception of Voicing of Stops in Individuals with Auditory Dys-synchrony

Abstract

The objective of the present study was to determine the effect offine-grained auditory training on the perception of voiced and voiceless stops in individuals with auditory dys-synchrony. The study also aimed to determine the phoneme errors before and after training. The perception was studied using bi-syllabic phonemically balanced words and a set of non-sense CV stop syllables with different place of articulation. Nine ears of five individuals with auditory dys-synchrony were evaluated. The participants were trained to identify voiced/voiceless pairs of stimuli along three different stop continua (bilabials, velars, & alveolar). Training was pro vided for each pair till the participants obtained identification thresholds similar to that obtained by 80% of a group of JO normal hearing individuals. The results of the present study reveal that there was a significant improvement for both words and non-sense CVs following training. The significant improvement in speech identification scores following therapy highlights the utility of systematic fin e-grained auditory training in individuals having auditory dys-synchrony. Although the training was given to improve perception of voiced-voiceless stops, the enhancement in performance was not restricted to only voice-voiceless contrasts. Improvement was seen for vowel perception as well as other consonants.