Phonology Acquired through the Eyes and Spelling in Deaf Children

Abstract

Hearing and deaf children, ranging in age from 6 years 8 months to 14 years 4 months, and matched for general spelling level, were required to spell high-frequency and low-frequency words. Of interest was performance in relation to degree of exposure to Cued Speech (CS), which is a system delivering phonetically augmented speechreading through the visual modality. Groups were (a) hearing children, (b) deaf children exposed early and intensively to CS at home (CS-Home), and (c) deaf children exposed to CS later and at school only (CS-School). Most of the spelling productions of hearing children as well as of CS-Home children were phonologically accurate for high-frequency as well as for low-frequency words. CS-School children, who had less specified phonological representations, made a lower proportion of phonologically accurate spellings. These findings indicate that the accuracy of phonological representations, independent of the modality (acoustic versus visual) through which spoken language is perceived, determines the acquisition of phonology-to-orthography mappings. Analyses of the spelling productions indicate that the acquisition of orthographic representations of high precision depends on fully specified phonological representations.

Lateralization effects during semantic and rhyme judgement tasks in deaf and hearing subjects

“…Children whose parents use CS to communicate with them from an early age are exposed to a linguistic input that is fully accessible and formal. They undergo a normal development of phonology and grammar of the spoken language (Alegria, Charlier, & Mattys, 1999;Hage, Alegria, & Pe erier, 1991;Leybaert, 2000;Leybaert, Alegria, Hage, & Charlier, 1998;Leybaert & Charlier, 1996;Leybaert & Lechat, 2001b;Nicholls, 1982;Pe erier, Charlier, Hage, & Alegria, 1988). Before going further, it is necessary to precise what is meant by ''phonology'' in the CS-users.…”

Towards Augmentative Speech Communication

“…Hand shapes distinguish among consonant phonemes whereas hand positions distinguish among vowel improves the speech perception of deaf people (Nicholls & Ling, 1982;Uchanski et al, 1994). Moreover, for deaf people who have been exposed to this mode since their youth, it offers a complete representation of the phonological system, and therefore it has a positive impact on the language development (Leybaert, 2000). Figure 1 describes the complete system for French.…”

Lip Shape and Hand Position Fusion for Automatic Vowel Recognition in Cued Speech for French

“…Therefore, in 1967 Cornett developed in 1967 the Cued Speech system as a supplement to lip reading [3]. Cued Speech improves speech perception for the hearing-impaired people [4], and for those who are exposed to this method since their youth, offers them a complete representation of the phonological system, and thereby has exerts a positive impact on the language development [5].…”