Abstract: Objective To investigate the acoustic characteristics of the voice of 3~6 years old children with hearing-impairment. Methods The voice samples were collected from 148 hearing-impaired children and 122 normal children, all aged 3~6 years. The acoustic parameters including F0, F0SD, jitter, shimmer, NNE, OQ, SQ, AQ, STF were compared. Results The F0, SQ, STF, F0SD, jitter were more in the children with hearing-impairment than in the normal children (P<0.05). There was no significant difference between hearing-impairment and normal children in shimmer, NNE, OQ and AQ (P>0.05). There was no significant difference of all the acoustic parameters among children with different ages (P>0.05), except the NNE was less in 3~4 years old children than 5~6 years old children (P<0.05). There was no significant difference of all the acoustic parameters between boys and girls (P>0.05). Conclusion The vibration of vocal cords is instable and irregular,saying overquick and close intensely in hearing-impaired children. The age and sex do not influence the acoustic parameters, except NNE is less in younger children.

Key words: hearing-impairment, children, voice, acoustic parameters