선천적 또는 후천적으로 청력손실을 가진 청각 장애인들은 소리를 충분히 듣지 못하게 되고 이로 인하여 타인과의 의사소 통에 문제가 발생한다. 이러한 의사소통의 문제는 심리사회적 어려움의 원인이 될 수 있다. 대부분의 난청은 보청기로 도움을 받을 수 있으나, 보청기는 고심도 이상의 청력손실을 가진 청각 장애인에게는 제한된 청각적 보상을 주기 때문에 다양한 주파 수들로 결합된 복합음인 음성언어를 듣는 데 한계가 있다. 따라 서 보청기로 충분한 도움을 받을 수 없는 경우, 인공와우 이식 (cochlear implants, CI)을 고려할 수 있다.
Purpose: The present study examined the nasalance (%) and resonance characteristics in children with normal hearing (NH) and children with cochlear implants (CI) using Nasometer II 6564 (KAY Elemetrics Corp.). Methods: Twenty NH and twenty CI participated in this study. Of twenty children with CI, ten (CI-B) had the CI surgery before three years old and the other ten had after three years old (CI-A). Results: For nasalance of vowels, significantly higher nasalance scores in CI than NH and vowel /i/ was significantly higher than vowel /u/ and / a/. However, no significant differences were found in CI-B and CI-A. Likewise, for oral-sound sentences, significantly higher nasalance scores were observed in CI than NH whereas no difference between CI-B and CI-A. For nasal and nasal-sound sentences, there were no significant differences between NH and CI, and between CI-B and CI-A although lower nasalance scores were found in CI. Generally, CI showed seldom normal resonance (10%) and most of CI demonstrate deviant resonance patterns (90%). Hypernasality was typical resonance pattern, followed by hyponasality, mixed nasality, and cul-de-sac resonance regardless of age of implantation in CI. Conclusion: Although hearing improves following CI, most children with CI demonstrated still abnormal resonance patterns in comparison with NH, which may affect normal speech production. In addition, normal resonance was seldom observed regardless of CI surgery period. Therefore, auditory rehabilitation for resonance was needed after CI for normal speech production.
INTRODUCTION MATERIALS AND METHODS RESULTS DISCUSSIONS REFERENCES
