LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 15:12 December 2015
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

HOME PAGE

Click Here for Back Issues of Language in India - From 2001

BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ AND DOWNLOAD FREE!

REFERENCE MATERIALS

BACK ISSUES

  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports in Microsoft Word to languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.

  • PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES GIVEN IN HOME PAGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIST OF CONTENTS.

  • Your articles and book-length reports should be written following the APA, MLA, LSA, or IJDL Stylesheet.

  • The Editorial Board has the right to accept, reject, or suggest modifications to the articles submitted for publication, and to make suitable stylistic adjustments. High quality, academic integrity, ethics and morals are expected from the authors and discussants.

Copyright © 2015
M. S. Thirumalai
Custom Search

Speech Intelligibility of Malayalam Speaking
Cochlear Implant Children

Soumya Ann Zachariah
Satish Kumaraswamy

Abstract

Cochlear implant (CI) is an electronic device that is designed to provide hearing to those with profound deafness. Part of the device is surgically implanted into the inner ear and part is worn externally. As a prosthetic device, the cochlear implant stimulates the auditory nerve directly bypassing the damaged part of the inner ear or cochlea. Many viable nerve fibers remain in the auditory nerve even in cases of profound deafness, and the cochlear implant can restore activity to this nerve and hearing pathway. That much of the speech signal is redundant explains why cochlear implant only needs to transmit a small fraction of the information that is contained in speech sounds to achieve good speech intelligibility, Susan (2011).

Studies on speech intelligibility of cochlear implant have been attempted in western countries and few studies in India have been attempted in different language like Telugu, etc. In Kerala the cochlear implantation program have made a drastic change. By providing adequate speech and language therapy after cochlear implantation will enhance the speech and measuring the speech intelligibility gives an insight of rehabilitation program in these children. No attempts have been made to study speech intelligibility in Malayalam cochlear implant children.

Three groups of listeners participated in the study. First group of listeners consisted of ten Speech Language Pathologist. Second group consisted of individual who were not experienced with hearing impaired. The third group of listeners were mothers of implanted children. The cochlear implant children were given 5 tasks to repeat familiar words, unfamiliar words, and nonsense words said by the tester, to describe a picture given and general conversation. These were recorded using PRAAT software and saved as WAV files.

Result showed that familiar persons – mothers and Speech language pathologist rated speech intelligibility better when compared to NON SLPs. Familiar topics like repletion of familiar words were rated better when compared to all other tasks.

Keywords: Cochlear implant, Malayalam speaking children, speech intelligibility.

Introduction

Speech is the fundamental communication method of human kind. It is crucial to have a good understanding of speech, not only in daily communication but also in emergency situation. The percentage of speech correctly understood is speech intelligibility. Speech intelligibility is the measure of the effectiveness of speech. The measurement is usually expressed as a percentage of a message that is understood correctly. Speech intelligibility does not imply speech quality. There are many factors affecting speech intelligibility including interference, noise, reverberation, echoes, etc.

Cochlear Implants

There are many reasons why cochlear implants are successful in providing speech intelligibility and identification of environmental sounds despite they do not replace all the function of normal cochlea. Much natural speech signals are redundant. Much of the normal processing capabilities of the ear are redundant. Much of the processing that normally occurs in the auditory nervous system is redundant. The central nervous system has an enormous ability to adapt to changing demands through expression of neural plasticity. That much of the speech signal is redundant explains why cochlear implant only needs to transmit a small fraction of the information that is contained in speech sounds to achieve good speech intelligibility, Susan (2011).

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Soumya Ann Zachariah
Dr. M. V. Shetty College of Speech and Hearing
Malady Court
Kavoor
Mangalore – 575 015
Karnataka
India
soumyazac91@gmail.com

Satish Kumaraswamy
Assistant Professor and Research Scholar
Dr. M. V. Shetty College of Speech and Hearing
Malady Court
Kavoor
Mangalore – 575 015
Karnataka
India
Sat8378@yahoo.com
Custom Search
  • Click Here to Go to Creative Writing Section

  • Send your articles
    as an attachment
    to your e-mail to
    languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Please ensure that your name, academic degrees, institutional affiliation and institutional address, and your e-mail address are all given in the first page of your article. Also include a declaration that your article or work submitted for publication in LANGUAGE IN INDIA is an original work by you and that you have duly acknowledged the work or works of others you used in writing your articles, etc. Remember that by maintaining academic integrity we not only do the right thing but also help the growth, development and recognition of Indian/South Asian scholarship.