2022 Volume 63 Issue 1 Pages 23-33
The purpose of this study was to analyze characteristics of the speech rates of elementary to high school students attending a special needs school for the deaf and hard-of-hearing when reading aloud, in order to understand developmental trends and the relationship between grade levels and average unaided hearing levels, as well as to study the associations between self-assessment and 1) the timing of cochlear implant use and 2) speech rate. Results suggested that duration per mora and in-sentence pause times were shorter in middle school than in elementary school for groups with an average unaided hearing level of 80 to 99 dB and the group with cochlear implants. Moreover, we found an overall significant association between self-assessment of speech rate and speech duration per mora. These findings clarified that deaf or hard-of-hearing children who exhibit longer speech duration per mora are aware, even in self-assessment, that their speech rate is slow.
