The development of speechreading skills in Chinese students with hearing impairment.

The developmental trajectory of speechreading skills is poorly understood, and existing research has revealed rather inconsistent results. In this study, 209 Chinese students with hearing impairment between 7 and 20 years old were asked to complete the Chinese Speechreading Test targeting three linguistics levels (i.e., words, phrases, and sentences). Both response time and accuracy data were collected and analyzed. Results revealed (i) no developmental change in speechreading accuracy between ages 7 and 14 after which the accuracy rate either stagnates or drops; (ii) no significant developmental pattern in speed of speechreading across all ages. Results also showed that across all age groups, speechreading accuracy was higher for phrases than words and sentences, and overall levels of speechreading speed fell for phrases, words, and sentences. These findings suggest that the development of speechreading in Chinese is not a continuous, linear process.

Phonological store and speechreading performance of Chinese students with hearing impairment.

This study presents three experiments to examine the role of the phonological store component of working memory in the speechreading performance of students with hearing impairment (HI) in China. In Experiment 1, 86 high school students with HI completed an immediate serial recall task with four lists of monosyllabic words that differed in phonological and visual similarities. In Experiment 2 and Experiment 3, 40 participants divided into high or low phonological store capacity (PS) and 40 participants divided into high or low visual phonological story capacity (VPS) completed a speechreading test at the word, phrase and sentence levels. Results revealed that (1) immediate serial recall showed effects of phonological and visual similarity and their interaction; (2) there was no significant effect of phonological store capacities on speechreading; and (3) there was a significant effect of visual phonological store capacities on accuracy but not speed of speechreading. These findings point to a general phonological store system for visual orthographic coding and phonological coding that students with HI engage in speechreading in Chinese. It provides evidence for the contention that the visual-based coding has a more direct impact on speechreading performance of Chinese students with HI than the speech-based coding.

Enhanced Speechreading Performance in Young Hearing Aid Users in China.

Purpose The study was designed primarily to determine if the use of hearing aids (HAs) in individuals with hearing impairment in China would affect their speechreading performance. Method Sixty-seven young adults with hearing impairment with HAs and 78 young adults with hearing impairment without HAs completed newly developed Chinese speechreading tests targeting 3 linguistic levels (i.e., words, phrases, and sentences). Results Groups with HAs were more accurate at speechreading than groups without HA across the 3 linguistic levels. For both groups, speechreading accuracy was higher for phrases than words and sentences, and speechreading speed was slower for sentences than words and phrases. Furthermore, there was a positive correlation between years of HA use and the accuracy of speechreading performance; longer HA use was associated with more accurate speechreading. Conclusions Young HA users in China have enhanced speechreading performance over their peers with hearing impairment who are not HA users. This result argues against the perceptual dependence hypothesis that suggests greater dependence on visual information leads to improvement in visual speech perception.

The effect of speech training experiences on speechreading skills of Chinese children with hearing impairment.

Speechreading contributes significantly to effective communication, and persons with hearing impairment (HI) may need to rely more on speechreading. However, whether they may benefit from training/practice to improve their speechreading performance remains unclear. In this study, we examine the effect of speech training on speechreading performance of children with HI in China, and how such effect, if any, may be influenced by age. Fifty-nine HI children with speech training experiences, and fifty-eight HI children without speech training experiences completed tasks measuring their ability to speechread Chinese at the linguistic levels of words, phrases, and sentences. The children ranged from 7 to 14 years old, and were divided into four age groups by two-year age intervals. Both accuracy rate and response time data were collected. Results revealed three findings: (1) HI children with speech training experiences speechread more accurately but more slowly than those without speech training experiences; (2) while speechreading performance generally improved with age, age didn't alter the relative performance between the two groups; and (3) speechreading performance was best for phrases, and worst for sentences. These findings suggest that HI children benefit from speech training to improve their speechreading performance, and their speechreading performance is influenced by age, linguistic level, and the specific measure used.

The effect of hearing status on speechreading performance of Chinese adolescents.

The effect of hearing status on the ability to speechread is poorly understood, and current findings are inconclusive regarding differences in speechreading performance between children and adults with hearing impairment and those with normal hearing. In this study, we investigated the effect of hearing status on speechreading skills in Chinese adolescents. Thirty seven severely deaf students with a mean pure-tone average of 93 dB hearing threshold level and 21 hearing controls aged 16 completed tasks measuring their speechreading of simplex finals (monophthongs), complex finals (diphthongs or vowel + nasal constellations) and initials (consonants) in Chinese. Both accuracy rate and response time data were collected. Results showed no significant difference in accuracy between groups. By contrast, deaf individuals were significantly faster at speechreading than their hearing controls. In addition, for both groups, performance on speechreading simplex finals was faster and more accurate than complex finals, which in turn was better than initial consonants. We conclude that speechreading skills in Chinese adolescents are influenced by hearing status, characteristics of sounds to be identified, as well as the measures used.

The development of visual speech perception in Mandarin Chinese-speaking children.

The present study aimed to investigate the development of visual speech perception in Chinese-speaking children. Children aged 7, 13 and 16 were asked to visually identify both consonant and vowel sounds in Chinese as quickly and accurately as possible. Results revealed (1) an increase in accuracy of visual speech perception between ages 7 and 13 after which the accuracy rate either stagnates or drops; and (2) a U-shaped development pattern in speed of perception with peak performance in 13-year olds. Results also showed that across all age groups, the overall levels of accuracy rose, whereas the response times fell for simplex finals, complex finals and initials. These findings suggest that (1) visual speech perception in Chinese is a developmental process that is acquired over time and is still fine-tuned well into late adolescence; (2) factors other than cross-linguistic differences in phonological complexity and degrees of reliance on visual information are involved in development of visual speech perception.