Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation of the Speech of Adults with Hearing Impairment Based on Suprasegmental Factors, Speech Intelligibility, and Speech Acceptability

Background & Objectives: Patients with hearing impairments (HI) have problems communicating due to the lack of speech intelligibility (SI) and speech acceptability (SA). However, the speech evaluation in clinics is limited to evaluating SI and segmental factors. Hence, the present study examines how the speech of adults with HI are perceptually evaluated in terms of suprasegmental factors, SI, and SA, and specifically how suprasegmental factors may influence SI and SA. Methods: First, the auditory-perceptual suprasegmental profiles were created by including the upper 6 section items such as pitch, loudness, voice quality, resonance, intonation, and speech rate, and the lower 22 concrete items. Fifty-five subjects were separated into 2 groups based on the onset of HL (prelingual vs. postlingual) or the degree of HL (severe vs. profound). Subjects were asked to participate in picture description tasks, paragraph reading tasks, non-syllabic and wordnaming tasks. Five professional speech and language pathologists used the 100 mm Visual Analog Scale to measure the severity of the suprasegmental section items, SI, and SA. Results: First, there were significant differences in suprasegmental factors depending on the onset and the degree of HL; prelingual patients showed a relatively greater degree than postlingual patients, and the profound group demonstrated greater severity than the severe group. Second, SI and SA were relatively lower in the prelingual and profound group than in the postlingual and severe group. In addition, overall SA rates were lower than SI rates. Although these 2 rates showed high correlations in general, no significant correlations were observed in the postlingual group. Third, Pearson correlation analysis revealed that segmental factors were more highly correlated with SI, but suprasegmental factors were more highly correlated with SA. Results of multiple regression analysis implied that factors such as the percentage of consonants correct (PCC), percentage of vowels correct, and the severity of intonation and speech rates significantly influenced SI. However, PCC, the severity of intonation, and the resonance and speech rates significantly influenced SA. Discussion & Conclusion: The results of the present study verified that suprasegmental factors, SI, and SA are valuable indices that may be applied to the effective evaluation of various speech problems in adults with HI during an auditory-perceptual evaluation of speech.