Abstract: Objective To study the characteristics and differences of phonetic pronunciation between hearing-impaired and normal children in 4.5~5.5 years old groups. Methods Phonetic articulation of consonants and vowels were tested by three-grade assessors for 20 hearing- impaired children and 20 normal children in 4.5~5.5 years old group using Question Bank for Hearing-impaired Children's Rehabilitation Evaluation of Hearing and Speech. Results and Conclusion For hearing-impaired children, the consonants of /b. m. d. l. j/ were the most articulative, followed with /h. f. r. p. t. n. g. x/, and then /zh. z. k. c. sh. q. s. ch/; for normal children, the consonants of /b. p. f. g. m. d. h/ were the most articulative, followed with /k. j. x. t. r. l/, and then /q. zh. ch. sh. n. z. s. c/. For both groups, the single final was the most articulative, followed with the compound final, and then the nasal. The articulation of these 3 types of vowels were poorer in hearing-impaired children than in normal children (P<0.01)

Key words: hearing-impaired children, normal children, consonants, vowels, phonetic articulation