Articulatory variability during consonant production by Greek speakers with hearing impairment: an electropalatographic study

This study uses the technique of electropalatography to investigate lingual-palatal contact patterns during the production of the consonants /t, k, s, x, n, l, Gamma/ by four Greek speakers with profound hearing impairment and with differences in the intelligibility of their speech. The study provides a detailed description of their tongue-palate contact patterns and discusses some of the articulatory parameters that differentiate consonantal articulation between speakers with normal hearing and hearing impairment. Deviant patterns were found for the majority of consonants and involved substitutions, distortions, and epenthesis of segments. The segments that deviated from normal for all speakers were the fricative /s/, the palatal obstruents [c] and [c], and the tap [Gamma]. Significant differences in articulatory variability during consonantal production were also found. The study discusses deviant patterns in consonant production in relation to the differences in intelligibility among the speakers and with reference to data from previous studies.(1).