Tehran University of Medical Sciences Auditory and Vestibular Research 2423-480X 33 3 2024 03 13 227 234 Rahimeh Roohparvar Department of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran Mahin Karimabadi Department of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran Shima Ghahari Department of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran Mogaddameh Mirzaee Modeling in Health Research Center, Institute for Futures Studies in Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran 2023 09 03 2023 12 18 Background and Aim: Hearing-impaired individuals have difficulty comprehending and producing speech sounds. Cochlear implantation is used to augment hearing. The present study aims to compare the production of fricatives /s/ and /ʃ/ and affricate /ʧ/ by Persianspeaking Cochlear-Implanted (CI) and Normal-Hearing (NH) children. Methods: Fifteen Persian-speaking NH children and 15 Persian-speaking CI children, matched for age, gender, and general health conditions, were included in the study. The stimuli included two voiceless Persian fricatives /s/ and /ʃ/ and one voiceless Persian affricate /ʧ/ along with the open front vowel /æ/ in three Consonant-Vowel (CV), Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (CVC), and Vowel-Consonant (VC) contexts (/sæ/, /æsæ/, /æs/, /ʃæ/, /æʃæ/, /æʃ/, /ʧæ/, /æʧæ/, /æʧ/). After recording all utterances, Praat software was used to measure the friction duration, rise time, and spectral peak of the consonants. Results: The CI children could not distinguish between /ʃ/ and /ʧ/ and produced affricate /ʧ/ as an allophone of /ʃ/ (p=0.01). Moreover, distinguishing between two fricatives /s/ and /ʃ/ was difficult for both groups. While NH children slightly treated these two sounds differently, the CI group produced fricative /s/ as an allophone of /ʃ/ (p=0.02). The rise time of /ʃ/ was longer in the NH children, except for /ʧæ/, where the CI children had a longer rise time. Conclusion: The speech of CI children is different in producing /s/, /ʃ/, and /ʧ/ from their NH peers. The results can help speech therapists, clinical linguists, and application designers focus on speech sounds that are challenging for CI children to produce. https://avr.tums.ac.ir/index.php/avr/article/view/1205 https://avr.tums.ac.ir/index.php/avr/article/download/1205/571