Articulation production: a comparative study of university attendees having visual impairment from early childhood and university attendees without visual impairment

Communication skills are a vital component of educational, occupational, and social success. Research suggests that even simple misarticulations in conversational discourse may create handicaps for nonstandard speakers, especially as most normally speaking communication partners will form negative impressions about speakers with articulation difficulties. These negative impressions may subsequently have adverse repercussions and result in damaging consequences across many aspects of educational, occupational, and social-emotional interactions, particularly among adult speakers.

For individuals who have visual impairment, the ability to communicate clearly and effectively is critically important for information gathering, for establishing social connections, and for providing evidence of cognitive knowledge or task completion. When individuals with visual impairment have concomitant communication difficulties, obstacles to functional independence are increased. Presently existing data suggests that children having visual impairments show increased prevalence for articulation error. However, published opinions refuting this proposition can also be found. It is further unclear as to whether these suggested articulation differences persist into the adult lives of individuals having visual impairments. Answers to these conflicting positions are presently needed to ensure that appropriate, comprehensive, and necessary services to individuals having visual impairments are made available.

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the frequency of occurrence for articulation differences among adult university students and alumni having visual impairments from early childhood, as well as to determine if productions from adult speakers with visual impairments from early childhood differed significantly from the articulation productions of adult speakers who were sighted. Production analysis was further completed to determine if adult speakers having visual impairments from early childhood showed differences that occured in patterns or that were similar to one another.