Face Mask Speech Impairment, Evidences from Preschool to High School

Abstract

The face masks are one of the best tools to prevent the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Although these could stop being used in a future, there are plenty of application where their use is needed. For this reason, their study in terms of health effects and speech intelligibility and articulation index could be interesting. In this research, a survey was carried out to know the effect of wearing face mask in different education levels. Besides, a study of the speech intelligibility, articulation index and sound quality evaluations were carried out to research which type of the face mask should be used in education settings. The results suggest that there is a correlation between the health effects due to the use of the face mask and the gender or the type of contract. Additionally, there are significant differences in terms of speech intelligibility, articulation index and loudness depending on the type of face mask used, the distance between students and teachers and if the students have hearing-impaired. Thus, this paper can provide a guidance on how to choose the best face mask to improve speech understanding when communicating with other people, especially in education settings.