| This study explores the effects of manipulating vocal loudness and speech rate on voice onset time (VOT) in normal hearing children and two children with cochlear implants (CIs). 15 normal hearing participants and two participants with CIs produced all six stop consonants in the phrase "It's a Cod again" while speaking normally, softly, loudly, slowly, and quickly. Consonants were grouped into voiced and voiceless categories for comparison. Results indicated that the group of normal hearing children produced longer VOTs for voiceless stops than voiced across all conditions. When speaking loudly or quickly, VOT values were shorter than at normal levels. When speaking softly or slowly, VOT values were longer than at normal levels. The two children with CIs performed in a similar manner to the normal hearing group; however, VOTs produced by the six-year old participant were consistently longer than those of the normal hearing group across all conditions. |
