Speech Development for Children with Hearing Loss

Speech is a highly desirable asset. It is our main vehicle for expressing our thoughts and feelings to other people. It is a multifaceted and yet learnable system, even for children who are deaf (Berg, 2008).

How We Speak

The system for producing speech includes the brain, the chest muscles, the lungs, the larynx, the velum, the tongue, the lips, and the lower jaw. Speech features include breath, stress, voice, pitch, intonation, nasality, and articulation (Berg, 2008).

In the brain, meanings and ideas are coded into language and motor correlates before motor commands can be sent to the vocal tract to activate speech (MacNeilage, Studdert-Kennedy, & Lindblom, 1985). We speak in a hierarchy from phonemic features, to phonemes, to syllables, to words, and to phrases and sentences (Hirsh, 1985). Each phoneme produced includes several phonemic features (Stevens, 1985).

As the child moves up the hierarchical ladder of speech from phonemes to long and complex sentences, speaking becomes more and more difficult. Children use a self-organizing process to master the complicated interactive systems used to produce speech (Kent, 1985; Lauter, 1985). To say all possible sounds, syllables, words, and sentences intelligibly and fluently requires either preplanning, rapid sensory feedback with servo control, a cognitive schema that is highly responsive to various situational demands, or some combination of these (Bowe, 1985).

Speech is functional when it is automatically or fluently produced. This occurs when we can concentrate on what we are saying rather than how to produce speech (Stelmach & Hughes, 1985). When we generate an utterance, we attempt to control the positions and movements of the articulation structures and the respiratory system so as to achieve certain patterns of acoustic goals or targets. Within a speaker-listener's brain is an inventory of more acoustic features than needed to produce or perceive the sounds and words of a language (Stevens, 1985).

The talker has to breathe in a unique way while speaking. In comparison with quiet breathing, more air is inspired, and more quickly, and expiration is much longer. A word or sentence may be produced during the expiration of one breath. The brain's control of speech respiration must be closely orchestrated with its control of articulation. The air pressure from the lungs must continuously change in step with each successive phoneme produced (Lauter, 1985). Air pressure from the lungs must also be sufficient to assist with the phonation of voice (Picket, 1980).

Sensory Clues in Speech Training

Speech training with a child who is deaf basically relies on the combined use of speechreading, and tactile and auditory clues. While the professional provides a speech model for imitation, the child looks at and listens to him or her. The child may also have his or fingertips on the throat or nose of the professional, or at times in front of the mouth or along side the face of the professional (Berg, 2008; Ling, 1976).