Research on tactile communication of speech: a review.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to C M Reed.
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It has been found that listeners with sensorineural hearing loss who show similar patterns of consonant confusions also tend to have similar audiometric profiles. The present study determined whether normal listeners, presented with filtered speech, would produce consonant confusions similar to those previously reported for the hearing-impaired listener. Consonant confusion matrices were obtained from eight normal-hearing subjects for four sets of CV and VC nonsense syllables presented under six high-pass and six-low pass filtering conditions. Patterns of consonant confusion for each condition were described using phonological features in sequential information analysis. Severe low-pass filtering produced consonant confusions comparable to those of listeners with high-frequency hearing loss. Severe high-pass filtering gave a result comparable to that of patients with flat or rising audiograms. And, mild filtering resulted in confusion patterns comparable to those of listeners with essentially normal hearing. An explanation in terms of the spectrum, the level of speech, and the configuration of this individual listener's audiogram is given.
This study reports the ability of two observers with normal-hearing and sight to discriminate pairs of speech elements through the Tadoma method of speechreading. The observers were blindfolded and exposed to masking noise to eliminate visual and auditory cues. They placed their right hand over the speaker's face and neck so that the thumb rested lightly on the lips and the fingers fanned out over the cheek and neck. The discrimination tests were conducted using an ABX procedure. Average discrimination scores for the five types of test materials used in the ABX tests were 87% on W-22 words, 83% on Modified Rhyme Test words, 70% on vowels, 77% on CV and VC nonsense syllables, and 71% on consonant clusters. In all of the ABX tests, the inexperienced observers performed at least as well as the experienced Tadoma user studied by Norton, et al (1977). This finding indicates that the basic tactile sensitivity of inexperienced observers is comparable to that of an experienced deaf-blind Tadoma user.
Certain deaf-blind persons have been taught, through the Tadoma method of speechreading, to use vibrotactile cues from the face and neck to understand speech. This paper reports the results of preliminary tests of the speechreading ability of one adult Tadoma user. The tests were of four major types: (1) discrimination of speech stimuli; (2) recognition of words in isolation and in sentences; (3) interpretation of prosodic and syntactic features in sentences; and (4) comprehension of written (Braille) and oral speech. Words in highly contextual environments were much better perceived than were words in low-context environments. Many of the word errors involved phonemic substitutions which shared articulatory features with the target phonemes, with a higher error rate for vowels than consonants. Relative to performance on word-recognition tests, performance on some of the discrimination tests was worse than expected. Perception of sentences appeared to be mildly sensitive to rate of talking and to speaker differences. Results of the tests on perception of prosodic and syntactic features, while inconclusive, indicate that many of the features tested were not used in interpreting sentences. On an English comprehension test, a higher score was obtained for items administered in Braille than through oral presentation.
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An outbreak of hepatitis A occurred in a pediatric hospital in Texas. The index case had been admitted during the incubation period for cardiac surgery and developed symptoms while hospitalized. A child in a nearby bed acquired hepatitis A, as did three staff members. The second child was still hospitalized when she developed symptoms and infected 12 nurses, 3 physicians, 2 medical students, 2 patients and 1 respiratory therapist. Children with diarrhea can effectively disseminate this virus even when normal hospital routines and rules of hygiene are observed.