Improvement of Speech and Its Psychological Correlates in Deaf Persons and Development of Microprocessor-Based Aid

摘要

The development of a microprocessor-based speech training aid is described. A three-year evaluation is reported in which an experimental group (E) of hearing-impaired children was trained using the aid and compared with a control group (C) of matched subjects trained on a similar program, but without the aid. Behavioral and linguistic measures were made of progress in vowel production, recall and generalization. A major conclusion is that benefits derived from teaching with the Computer Vowel Trainer, CVT, are age-dependent. E infants improved significantly compared with C infants during training, but the difference was not significant for juniors. The CVT works successfully in classroom conditions, is reliable and simple to use by teachers and is acceptable to children. Recommendations are made concerning future development of computer-based aids.