The pronunciation of a number of English words by Dutch hearing impaired and normal hearing students in Dutch special and ordinary secondary education: Preliminary results

Abstract

In 1986, a research project was started in the Institute of Phonetic Sciences of Groningen University to investigate the pronunciation of English by hearing-impaired students in Dutch special secondary education. With the help of a tailor-made articulation test, we compare the pronunciation of English by these students to the pronunciation of English by students with normal hearing in ordinary secondary education. This article presents the results of 11 normal hearing and 11 hearing-impaired students on one of the items of our test: pronouncing a number of isolated words. Group I consists of five normal hearing and five hearing-impaired speakers in their first year at secondary school. Group II consists of three normal hearing and three hearing-impaired speakers from the second year intermediate level. Group III consists of three normal hearing and three hearing-impaired speakers from the second year lower level. It can be seen that more or less the same English sounds are regarded as difficult by both the hearing-impaired students and the normal hearing students, but that there is a much wider range of realizations within the groups of hearing-impaired students.