Röst och hörselnedsättning
Akustisk analys av röst hos sju hörapparatsanvändare
A number of studies have been made to examine several aspects of voice production in individuals with different types of hearing impairments. Most of the studies were made to explore the impact that hearing aids have for people with severe or congenital hearing impairment. So far it has been confirmed that there are changes regarding voice production in these individuals. A group that has not been investigated regarding voice production to a larger extent are hearing aid users with an acquired hearing impairment. In the present study the voice production of seven individuals, four men and three women, with a moderate acquired hearing impairment is examined. The individuals had an age span ranging from 55-71 years and had used hearing-aids for one year at the most. The participants were recorded as they completed three different tasks; reading aloud, spontaneous speech and production of sustained vowels. These tasks were performed twice; with and without hearing aids. An acoustic analysis of the recordings was performed in order to examine possible changes in mean fundamental frequency and vocal effort. Analysis on an individual level shows that throughout the different tasks, no participant demonstrated constant, audible differences regarding both fundamental frequency and vocal effort. However there were noticeable changes for a few participants in some of the tasks. Since the differences for most of the participants were negligible and inconsistent, no impact of the hearing aids or compensatory strategies was seen.