Ammara Nusrat, Nayab Iftikhar, Sumera Nawaz Malik, Rabiya Ghayas.
Effectiveness of FM System and Hearing Aids to Improve Articulation for Children with Hearing Loss.
J Riphah Coll Rehab Sci Jan ;03(01):30-5.

Background: In Pakistan there is high prevalence of disabilities e.g. physical disabilities, hearing impairment and communication problems etc, therefore here is immense need for making a lot of preventives measures. There are also a number of institutions and organizations who are concerned with different aspects of the problems relating to these impairments and disabilities. Objective: To compare the effectiveness of FM system with hearing aids in children with articulation errors with moderate to severe hearing loss by using Traditional Articulation Therapy (TAT). Methodology: The experimental study was conducted at Hamza Foundation Academy for hearing impaired children with articulation errors who participated in this experimental study. Four participants were using FM (Frequency Modulation) system during therapy and other four were using digital Hearing Aids. All children were with moderate to severe hearing loss, wearing same quality of hearing aid and studying in same grade. Same quality of FM system was used. From TAAPU (Test for assessment Articulation and Phonological Urdu) portion of articulation was used for pre and post assessment of articulation. After assessment Traditional Articulation Therapy (TAT) was applied on both groups. Same test had been conducted after therapy as post-assessment. It had shown the difference of both devices. Results: For improvement in articulation of sounds on all positions (initial middle and final), FM system shows better results than hearing aids. There is also significant decrease in different types of articulation errors in those children who are using FM system. FM has showed significant improvement for substitution error in word on all positions (initial middle and final). According to these results it is estimated that most of the time the mean scores were decreased in hearing aids users but not more than FM system. Conclusion: According to results, the expected benefits of F.M system are better than hearing aids. Effect on Articulation of F.M users has better effects on all positions of sounds (initial middle and final). Significant improvement is seen in omission and substitution error with use of FM system.

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