Spouses of persons with hearing loss served as talkers to examine the benefits of
clear speech intervention. One talker received intervention on clear speech. A second
talker was simply instructed to speak clearly. Each talker was recorded reading sentences
in three conditions: conversational speech, clear speech one week postintervention,
and clear speech one month postintervention. Speech acoustic measures were obtained.
Then the sentences were presented to subjects with normal hearing and subjects with
hearing loss to measure speech recognition. Results showed that simply asking a talker
to speak clearly was effective in eliciting clear speech; however, providing intervention
yielded changes in more speech parameters, more stable changes, and better speech
recognition. When listening to the talker who received intervention, subjects with
hearing loss achieved the same performance as subjects with normal hearing. However,
they performed worse than subjects with normal hearing when listening to the talker
who received clear speech instructions only. Individuals with hearing loss would receive
speech recognition benefits if their partners were provided with clear speech intervention.
Key Words
Audiologic rehabilitation - aural rehabilitation - clear speech - communication strategies
for hearing impaired
