The efficacy of speech training using meaningful versus nonmeaningful verbal stimuli with 10 severely and profoundly hearing-impaired elementary children was investigated. Results indicated that both syllable and word training improved imitative production of target phonemes in trained contexts. Word training was significantly more effective for…

The study examined whether two groups of profoundly hearing-impaired children (N=12) could learn and generalize phonetic-level speech skills into spoken language. One group was trained using content words, the other function words. Both groups made equal gains in speech, but the function group also gained in two language measures. (DB)