Abstract
Objective: This work aims to link the technological advances (cochlear implant) in prosthetic equipment for the deaf to their impact on voice and speech in profound hearing loss.
Method: Thirty-three patients between 6 and 30 years old with bilateral profound sensorineural congenital hearing loss, with cochlear implants. The recorded patient voices have been digitally processed with an Acoustic Analysis of Voice and Speech Program ANAGRAF and have also been analyzed and registered by the segmental and suprasegmentals features of voice and speech.
Results: Regarding voice quality, 48% reported a slight improvement and the other 48% a significantly improvement. The remaining 4% did not show changes. A total of 83% of patients tested so far shows a better improvement from personal calibrations between the 1° and 2° sample. Considering all the tested values for voice quality, improvement is observed in almost all subjects tested (32/33).
Conclusion: It was observed that patients showing better hearing performance as a result of prosthetic equipment use (cochlear implant), personal adjustment of the acoustic parameters and voice quality in each case, have improved with aspects of vocal quality and articulation precision necessary to achieve good communication.
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