Workshop on the Auditory Basis of Speech Perception Keele University, UK July 15-19, 1996

Consequences of Temporary Auditory Deficiencies for Speech Perception

Mária Gósy

Phonetics Laboratory, Research Insitute for Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary

Children often suffer from temporary hearing losses - when their threshold curves are at 20, 30 or 40 dB - caused by various reasons (adenoid vegetation, allergy or repeated catarrh). Our hypothesis is that these temporary hearing losses (i) cause deficits in the speech perception process, (ii) have long lasting consequences, and (iii) are detectable even after years. 137 children (ages 5 to 9), who had been reported to suffer from catarrh more than a year, were tested in order to evaluate their speech perception processes. Perceptual deficits were found with all these children affecting almost all tested areas from acoustic perception up to comprehension.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Gósy, Mária (1996): "Consequences of temporary auditory deficiencies for speech perception", In ABSP-1996, 269-272.