Speech perception: performance parameters and implications for speech therapy with hearing impaired children

Abstract

Introduction: Electronic devices can give access to sound information for children with hearing impairment. In order to assess the child’s performance, the development of listening skills and the effects of auditory rehabilitation programs, procedures are needed to assess the perception of speech sounds. Objective: To discuss performance parameters of changes in perceptual skills / speech production of children with hearing loss over six months of the therapeutic process. Method: application of the WASP instrument and the Confusion Matrix in four children with hearing loss. Results: performance parameters proposed by WASP appeared to be more sensitive to attempts of repeating the words, which do not always result in settlement. The use of the proposed criteria was efficient to characterize the hearing ability in word recognition in children with different degrees of hearing loss. The Confusion Matrix permitted further analysis of the phoneme substitutions, and a control of the occurrence of these in each list of words, giving the audiologist a parameter of the variables that may contribute to a better performance. Conclusion: the instruments used to analyze errors, WASP and Confusion Matrix, allowed for a detailed description of how the individual uses the acoustic cues available in its auditory dynamic area. Analysis of these results together with audiometric thresholds, amplification and clinical history may lead to a refinement of the expectations of the child’s auditory potential and, therefore, have implications in establishing therapeutic goals.