Audiol. 2013;22(1):32-40. Corresponding author : Department of Speech therapy, School of Rehabilitation, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Abiverdi Yek, Chamran Blvd., Shiraz, 7194733669, Iran. Tel: 0098711-6261081, E-mail: ebrahimsh@sums.ac.ir Research Article Phonetic discrimination of Persian vowels in children with severe hearing loss Shiva Ebrahimian 1 , Amene Ranjbar 2 , Mehri Safari 3 , Firooz Sadighi 2 , Mahboobe Saadat 2 1 - Department of Speech therapy, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran 2 - Department of Linguistics and Foreign Languages, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran 3 - Fars Cochlear Implant Center, Shiraz, Iran Received: 31 December 2011, accepted: 1 August 2012 Abstract Background and Aim: Hearing-impairment leads to problems in language perception which in turn results in difficulties in language production. The present study investigated hearing-impaired children's ability to discriminate Persian vowels. It aimed to describe the extent to which children have difficulty comprehending and discriminating phonetic features of vowels. Methods: To fulfill this aim, a researcher-made test, which was based on the Auditory Perception Test 2001, investigated the phonetic discrimination of vowels in Persian-speaking and hearing-impaired children aged five to eight years. The test has two sections, auditory-visual and just auditory discrimination of vowels, which included five subtests assessing discrimination of front and back vowels. Through this test, the phonetic discrimination ability of 22 hearing-impaired children was evaluated. The gathered data were analyzed using matched t-test and repeated measures ANOVA. Results: The findings showed that there is a significant difference between correct responses to the sections on front and back vowels (p<0.05). The audio-visual test showed that the // vowel is easier to discriminate than other back vowels. Moreover, in the auditory test the // vowel had the highest mean. The audio-visual test showed that the /i/ vowel is easier to discriminate than the other front vowels (/e/ /æ/). However, the discrimination of front vowels in the auditory test was the same. Conclusion: The results revealed that back vowels were more easily discriminated than front vowels by hearing-impaired children. Keywords: Phonology, vowel discrimination, hearing-impairment Downloaded from aud.tums.ac.ir at 8:01 IRST on Sunday November 28th 2021