Int Arch Otorhinolaryngol 2014; 18 - a2088
DOI: 10.1055/s-0034-1388957

Speech to Speech: Analysis of Language Production of a Deaf Child with Cochlear Implant

Mariana dos Santos Pedrett 1
  • 1Universidade Federal do Amazonas

Introduction: Language acquisition does not depend exclusively on cochlear implant.

Objectives: This study aims to describe the process of language acquisition of a child with cochlear implant from the acquisition of the phonetic-phonological segments to the start of speech/enunciation.

Methods: A case study whose methodological process was divided into the following: a transversal and longitudinal corpus of description of phonetic-phonological inventory, and, on a broader level, the speech. For acoustic research, recordings were stored by Praat acoustic analysis computer program.

Results: The deletion of silent glottal fricative [h] in 62.5% of words, as opposed to its completion (12.5%).The child performs vowel lengthening in 25% of cases, a repair strategy difficult to be perceived perceptually but found by acoustic analysis. Realization of consonant combination was marked by epenthetic vowel. Discursively, as to forms and functions, she/he marks the completion in enunciation.

Conclusion: Given the auditory limitations, the process of phonetic-phonological acquisition is slower. However, the child has been able to overcome them, which is notably perceived in the acoustic speech analyses, by making an effort to pronounce the phonemes, trying to adjust her/his articulatory gestures to what she/he perceives aurally. She/he tries the possibilities next to the phonological system of her/his language and built little by little, forms and sense already mentioned that highlighted the language mechanism as a very complex structure, which she/he has used, therefore reaching dialogical independence.

Keywords: cochlear implant, language, phonological acquisition, speech.