Distinctive feature analysis is one approach to supporting deaf and hard-of-hearing students' understanding of speech sound production. The approach categorizes each sound into the specific features necessary to produce it (place, manner, voice). Reviewing a "place-manner-voice" chart with students at the start of instruction can provide a foundation that supports further phoneme development, especially for those who are new to speaking. When working with deaf and hard-of-hearing students, it may benefit instructors to pair the distinctive feature analysis approach with multimodal cues, like visual and tactile supports. Tactile supports may include:

• Feeling vibration of voiced vs. voiceless by placing a hand on the throat
• Feeling nasal resonance by touching the side of the nose
• Placing a hand in front of the mouth to feel airflow

Visual supports may include:

• Use of spectrograms to see differences between features (e.g., stops vs continuants) or coarticulation between speech sound
• Use of models to demonstrate placement
• Gesture, handshapes, and cued speech

Distinctive feature analysis teaches deaf and hard-of-hearing students the specific building blocks of speech sounds while helping instructors provide more specific and effective feedback to encourages self-monitoring in older students.