Identification and discrimination of a synthesized voicing contrast by normal and sensorineural hearing-impaired childrena

The identification and discrimination of a stop-consonant voicing contrast (/da/-/ta/) was assessed in children and adolescents who had moderate, severe, and profound sensorineural hearing losses. The location of the perceptual boundary between /da/ and /ta/ did not differ between normal listeners and listeners with moderate losses. Of the ten listeners with severe losses, five evidenced normal boundaries, three evidenced longer-than-normal boundaries, and two could not identify the stimuli at all. Of the three listeners with profound hearing losses, one could identify normally, and two could not identify at all. For the most part, discrimination data mirrored identification data. However, in some instances listeners were able to discriminate between stimuli they could not differentially identify. These subjects appeared to have the auditory capacity to resolve differences in voice-onset-time but could not use this capacity to make phonetic identification.