2006 Volume 49 Issue 6 Pages 798-802
Nine hearing-impaired children with cochlear implants were subjected to the confusion matrix analysis by the 57S monosyllable speech discrimination test. The mean monosyllable discrimination score was 85.1% and its confusion pattern with cochlear implants themselves was generally better or equivalent to that with hearing aids, except for poorer discrimination of voiced plosives. Discrimination of voiceless consonants was better than that of voiced consonants, except for that of /j/ and /w/. Fricatives, with the exception of the glottal fricative /h/, could be perceived better by cochlear implantees. The lowest monosyllable discrimination was observed for the palato-alveolar affricate /t∫/. As the source of the articulation moved farther, poorer discrimination of fricatives and affricates was observed. Fine frequency- and time-resolution provided by cochlear implants play an important role in the improvement of monosyllable speech perception.
