Some Voice Fundamental Frequency Characteristics of Oral Reading and Spontaneous Speech by Hard-of-Hearing Young Women

Abstract

Fundamental frequency (f o ,) characteristics of 12 hard-of-hearing young women were compared with those of 12 hard-hearing control subjects during oral reading and spontaneous speech. The normal-hearing individuals almost always used greater mean f o and variability for oral reading than for spontaneous speech, but the hard-of-hearing subjects did not. On the average, greater f o , means and smaller f o standard deviations were observed for the hard-hearing group than for the control group, regardless of the speaking conditions. In addition,f o distributions of the hard-of hearing subjects were characterized by negative skewness whereas those of the normal-hearing subjects were positively skewed.