The role of speech rate for Italian-speaking cochlear implant users: insights for everyday speech perception
This study investigated the effect of speech rate for Italian-speaking cochlear implant (CI) users with the aim of gaining insight into everyday listening situations where speaker’s rate may vary considerably together with speech level in fluctuating background noise. The test material was prepared by processing the Italian STARR test with temporal compression of sentence material. Twelve adult CI users were divided into two subgroups based on their STARR performance: good and poor performers. The effect of varying speech rate was remarkable for both subgroups.