Five profoundly hearing-impaired children were taught the consonants /t,d,k,g,s,z∫/ using palatometry. Changes in linguapalatal contact patterns and listener perceptions showed significant improvement in the place and manner of consonants produced by all subjects. Velar stops were as easily and accurately learned as alveolar stops. Distinctive sibilants were also found by the end of training. Sounds not previously present in a subject’s phonetic repetoire were learned more accurately than those present but inaccurate prior to therapy. Voicing errors persisted. Two of the subjects showed evidence of newly established, unsolicited coarticulated movements. The results indicated that visual articulatory modeling and feedback of linguapalatal contact patterns is an effective means of teaching consonants and improving speech intelligibility.

Ten normal hearing (NH) and 18 profoundly hearing-impaired (HI) children were recorded using palatometry and audiotape while producing the consonants /t,d,k,g,s,z,∫/ in CV syllables (V=/i, α/). The lingual-palatal contacts produced by the NH subjects for the alveolar stops were undifferentiated across voicing and vowel environment differences. Lingual-palatal contact patterns for the velar stops differed for vowel environment but not for voicing. The /s/ and /z/ sibilants were distinguished by groove width but not anterior place. Groove locations for /s/ and /z/ were more anterior than groove locations for /∫/. The anterior grove location for the /∫/ was vowel dependent. The HI subjects produced idiosyncratic lingual-palatal contact patterns. As patterns for individuals became more unique and less variable across the syllable stimuli, listener identifications showed correspondingly incorrect, undifferentiated responses. The atypical contact patterns used by the HI subjects often required interpretation of possible tongue activities during attempts at the various consonants.

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Electropalatography (EPG) was used to train two 8-year-old girls with persistent lateral lisps. Pretreatment evaluations showed that the two speakers differed in the manner in which they produced lisps. Subject 1, who produced errors for /s/ and /z/ sounds only, produced these errors with linguapalatal closure across the alveolar ridge and no contact at the region of the molars. She remediated quickly (17 treatment sessions) and could produce correct productions in conversation when monitored. Subject 2 produced errors for the alveolar sibilants, the palatal sibilants, and the affricates. She produced these errors with linguapalatal contacts along the alveolar processes using a midline groove similar to that used for palatal sibilants. A rounded tongue configuration was suspected to occur that allowed for midline air passage as well as air passage through the buccal cavities. Subject 2 made minimal gains after 28 treatment sessions. Possible causes for the different performances of the two subjects are discussed.

Sentences recorded by four speakers with dysarthria and two control speakers were presented to listeners at three different rates: habitual, a 30% slower rate and a 30% higher rate. Rate changes were made by digitally manipulating the habitual sentences. Thirty young normal adult listeners rated the sentences for intelligibility (per cent correct words) and acceptability (via 9-point equal interval scale ranging from "terrible" through "excellent"). Intelligibility for each speaker remained unchanged across rate changes. Acceptability improved as rates increased for the two more intelligible impaired speakers. For the less intelligible impaired speakers, ratings were better and similar for the habitual and fast speaking rate conditions. Results are discussed in terms of the objective nature of intelligibility ratings vs. the subjective ratings of acceptability.