The study had two major objectives: (1) To compare the rhythm responsiveness of hearing and hearing impaired students on six subtests designed to measure beat identification, tempo change, accent as a factor in meter discrimination, melodic rhythm duplication, rhythm pattern duplication, and rhythm pattern maintenance; and (2) To investigate the relationship of rhythmic responsiveness in hearing impaired children to the suprasegmental aspects of speech perception that involve rhythm discrimination. / Sixty-two hearing impaired and normal hearing public school students served as subjects. Ages ranged from nine to sixteen with a mean age of twelve. Speech reception thresholds (SRT) for hearing impaired subjects better ear ranged from 35 dB to dB levels beyond the limits of the audiometer. The Test of Rhythm Responsiveness, recorded on a specially prepared tape, was used in conjunction with the TAP MASTER, a stereo cassette tape player with the capacity to provide a quantitative measurement of student response. The test tape was administered to hearing impaired subjects over a portable audiometer at 35 dB above subjects' SRT. / Results indicated that hearing impaired subjects performed as well or better than normal hearing subjects on subtests I, II, III, and V with regard to beat identification, tempo change, accent as a factor in meter discrimination, and rhythm pattern maintenance. However, a significant difference was found between the two groups on Subtest IV Parts A and B concerning melodic rhythm duplication, and rhythm pattern duplication. No significant difference was found among age levels or between males and females. The specific degree of hearing loss was not related to test performance of hearing impaired subjects with the exception of those subjects designated profoundly hearing impaired. / Two additional speech perception tests were administered to hearing impaired subjects, the Children's Auditory Test and the Auditory Numbers Test. These tests evaluated subjects' ability to discriminate suprasegmental (i.e. nonlinguistic) features of speech. Correlations were found between the rhythmic responsiveness subtests intended to measure beat identification, melodic rhythm duplication, and beat maintenance performance, and both of the suprasegmental speech perception tests. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-09, Section: A, page: 2702. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_75166 |
| Contributors | DARROW, ALICE-ANN., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 236 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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