Perception and Production of Prosody in People with Hearing Loss

Abstract

Prosody is the melody and rhythm of spoken language, and it is important in order for people to convey emotional and affective information. However, many studies have reported that people using hearing aids or cochlear implants have difficulties at perceiving and producing prosody. In this article, I reviewed and examined studies about perception and production of prosody, augmented by my own experiences. Many previous studies revealed that people using hearing aids show difficulties at perceiving and producing prosody that are related to their mean hearing level, low frequency hearing level, auditory learning, and so on. People using cochlear implants also show difficulties related to residual hearing, bimodal hearing, duration of CI, and age of the cochlear implantation. Some people were able to perceive and produce voice prosody like normal hearing people, and exhibited the possibility to improve their prosodic skills. Based on these findings, I concluded there is a need to examine related factors of prosody and develop a standard assessment in future studies.