A comparison of language achievement in children with cochlear implants and children using hearing aids

Evaluating the effect of cochlear implantation age on pragmatic abilities before and after age of 3

INTRODUCTION

The cochlear implant (CI) is crucial in developing hearing, speech, language, and communication skills in children with profound hearing loss (HL). The study aimed to assess how the age at which children receive a CI affects the development of pragmatic abilities between the ages of 5 and 8 for those who received a CI before or after the age of 3.

METHODS

Forty children with CI were evaluated. The children between the ages of 5 and 8 were divided into two groups who received CIs before or after age 3. The Persian version of the Children's Communication Checklist (CCC) was used to assess pragmatic abilities with a parent rating scale.

RESULTS

Children implanted under 3 got higher scores in social relationships, using context, conversational rapport, syntax, and speech. Also, their performance in inappropriate and stereotyped conversations was better than those over 3 years. They have a significant difference in the pragmatic composite than those who received CI over 3 except for coherence and interest (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

According to the results, children with CI under 3 performed better in pragmatic composites, which means they have better pragmatic abilities. These findings suggest that early CI is important. Of course, other individual and environmental factors must also be considered.

Comparative analysis of microstructures of narrative abilities in language-age-matched Tamil-speaking children with cochlear implants and typical hearing

In a unique exploration of narrative development among Tamil-speaking children, this study delves into the intricacies of linguistic expression, explicitly comparing the microstructure of narratives in two distinct groups: those with hearing differences (HD) and those with normal hearing. A total of 30 children were included in the study, with 15 children in each group, matched for language age between 3-5 years on standard language tests. The children were asked to retell a story they had listened to, and the obtained samples were transcribed verbatim and analyzed for various microstructural elements, including the mean length of utterances, total number of words, number of utterances, and number of different word types. The results revealed that children with hearing loss used fewer words and simpler sentences during retelling despite having the same language age as their peers. This highlights the importance of incorporating narrative assessment in standard language evaluations. Furthermore, the findings emphasise integrating narrative intervention into language intervention programs to enhance language productivity. Overall, this study provides valuable insights into the narrative abilities of Tamil-speaking children with cochlear implants and underscores the significance of addressing narrative skills in language intervention approaches.

Costs analysis of cochlear implantation in children

OBJECTIVES

The study assessed the direct medical costs of the cochlear implantation pathway from the healthcare payer's perspective, in children with bilateral severe to profound hearing loss, from diagnosis to 3 years' follow-up after first implantation. We also compared costs between two populations: congenital and progressive deafness.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

A retrospective costs analysis was performed for 56 children who received a cochlear implant in one French pediatric ENT center. The children had severe to profound hearing loss, and were implanted before the age of 10 years. We calculated direct medical costs in 3 phases: diagnosis to pre-implantation assessment, surgical and hospital management of implantation, and 3 years' follow-up.

RESULTS

Mean costs were €64,675 (range, €38,709-113,954) per child from diagnosis to 3 years after first implantation. Mean costs in congenital deafness detected on neonatal screening and on progressive deafness were respectively €65,420 and €63,930 (P=0.7).

CONCLUSION

The global cost was €64,675 per child from diagnosis to 3 years after first implantation. There was no difference in cost according to congenital versus progressive hearing loss.

Evaluation of Parental Perspectives and Concerns about Pediatric Cochlear Implantation: A Social Media Analysis

OBJECTIVE

Parents often experience uncertainty during decision-making for their child's cochlear implantation (CI) surgery, and online forums provide insight on parental opinions that might not be expressed in clinic. This study aims to evaluate parental perspectives and concerns about pediatric CI using social media analysis.

STUDY DESIGN

Qualitative study.

SETTING

Three online forums involving parental posts about pediatric CI.

INTERVENTION/METHODS

Forums were queried using keywords (e.g., "cochlear implant") to gather all U.S. parent-initiated posts about pediatric CI from 2006 to 2021. Thematic content analysis was performed to classify posts by overarching domain, themes, and subthemes. Posts were reviewed for thematic synthesis and double coded. Descriptive statistics were calculated for each theme by unique users.

RESULTS

A total of 79 posts by 41 unique users were analyzed. Themes relating to decision for CI included facilitators, inhibitors, resources, and feelings. Parents posted about lack of benefit from hearing aids promoting decision for CI and high cost as an inhibitor. Some expressed concern about making a major decision for a minor. Parents often mentioned their child's healthcare providers and social media as resources.

CONCLUSION

Through social media posts, parental priorities and concerns for decision-making of CI surgery were identified. Findings may guide discussions between physicians and parents and facilitate shared decision-making about CI.

Deaf and Hearing American Sign Language-English Bilinguals: Typical Bilingual Language Development

Some studies have concluded that sign language hinders spoken language development for deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children even though sign language exposure could protect DHH children from experiencing language deprivation. Furthermore, this research has rarely considered the bilingualism of children learning a signed and a spoken language. Here we compare spoken English development in 2-6-year-old deaf and hearing American Sign Language-English bilingual children to each other and to monolingual English speakers in a comparison database. Age predicted bilinguals' language scores on all measures, whereas hearing status was only significant for one measure. Both bilingual groups tended to score below monolinguals. Deaf bilinguals' scores differed more from monolinguals, potentially because of later age of and less total exposure to English, and/or to hearing through a cochlear implant. Overall, these results are consistent with typical early bilingual language development. Research and practice must treat signing-speaking children as bilinguals and consider the bilingual language development literature.

Predictors of Time Spent in Special Education Among Students With Severe-to-Profound Hearing Loss

OBJECTIVE

Determine if students with severe-to-profound hearing loss with cochlear implants (CIs) mainstream (transition to general education) more than students with hearing amplification at the population level.

STUDY DESIGN

Cross-sectional secondary analysis of data from the National Center of Education Statistics.

SETTING

Special education (SpEd) students in the United States who had severe to profound "hearing impairment" and were 6 to 16 years old at enrollment from 2000 to 2001.

METHODS

We weighted the data to produce national estimates, performed multiple imputations for missingness, and built a multivariate linear regression model, which was cross-validated with a multivariate Poisson regression model. We used a theory-based approach to model-building using a directed acyclic graph to identify the minimally sufficient adjustment set of variables, which included school district urbanicity, student's age when they started SpEd, other disabilities, home language, and caregiver education.

RESULTS

We identified 7267 students with CIs and 28,794 students with hearing amplification. CI users mainstreamed more than peers using hearing amplification during secondary school (40.29% less daily time in special education, p = .004) but not during primary school (9.19% less daily time in SpEd, p = .155). Additional significant predictors of mainstreaming varied between the primary and secondary school cohorts and included school district urbanicity and the student's age when they started SpEd.

CONCLUSION

CI status predicts daily time spent in SpEd among a secondary school cohort. These findings do not establish causation. The National Center of Education Statistics should consider linking to clinical databases in future studies.

Acquisition of Pragmatic Skills in Paediatric Cochlear Implant Users

Pragmatic language skills are one of the most complex language skills. Children with hearing loss face difficulty in social participation and effective communication during mainstreaming. Without mastery of these skills, children may encounter significant challenges with abstract conversational communication and literacy. This study aimed to explore the age and pattern of acquisition of pragmatic skills in hearing-impaired children. Twelve (12) children with Cochlear Implants (CI) in the age range of 5 to 10 years with minimum 1-year post-implantation regular therapy and twelve (12) age-matched normal hearing children participated in the study. All participants were administered the 'Test of Pragmatic Skills' (Shulman, 1986) comprising different domains of pragmatics. Their responses were rated on a six-point rating scale from 0 to 5. A qualitative analysis of various domains revealed that paediatric cochlear implant users used varied pragmatic skills at approximately 3 years on average during the post-implantation period compared to the typically developing children who acquired the skills well below 3 years on average. Pragmatics is very well correlated to the child's cognition; hence, the higher the cognitive age, the earlier the acquisition of pragmatic skills. The results prove that pragmatic skills developed proportionately to their implant age but need to be at par with their cognitive age. Rehabilitation of CI children, thus, should levy heavy focus on varied pragmatic domains, which will facilitate contextually appropriate communication at the earliest possible time during the post-implantation period.

Efficacy of auditory verbal therapy in children with cochlear implantation based on auditory performance - A systematic review

This systematic review focuses on the efficacy of auditory verbal therapy (AVT) in children with cochlear implants based on their auditory performance. The results presented are based on research findings from 2010 to 2021. The systematic review was designed based on the Popular Reporting Systems for the Systematic Review and Analysis of Meta-Analysts (PRISMA), the 2020 revised version, and the Critical Evidence for Clinical Evidence (CATE) checklist. Specific keywords were chosen based on the formulated research question and searched on the following search engines: Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, PubMed, Semantic Scholar, Cochrane, Science Direct, and BASE. All the searched articles were analysed based on specific exclusion criteria. The results revealed an important progression based on the auditory performance among children with cochlear implantation who received habilitation. The studies highlight that younger the age at implantation better the auditory performance and this may be necessary to allow at least relatively normal organization of auditory pathways in pre-lingual children with hearing impairment. Therefore, regular revitalization of aural-verbal rehabilitation and speech and language therapy is essential for younger children with hearing impairment to achieve the highest level of hearing function. This systematic review highlights importance of assessment of the auditory performance to be considered in the test battery while evaluating children with CI before and after habilitation along with AVT.

Outcomes of Acoustic and Linguistic Performances Following Cochlear Implantation in Large Vestibular Aqueduct Syndrome (LVAS)

AIM

This study aims to collate the outcomes in acoustic and linguistic performances after cochlear implantation in LVAS.

METHODS

In a hospital-based prospective interventional study, seven prelingual children with bilateral profound sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) with LVAS were recruited. They underwent unilateral cochlear implantation between December 2013 and December 2015 in the Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head Neck Surgery at a tertiary care center. Outcomes of auditory and speech performances were assessed in the form of revised categories of auditory perception (CAP), infant toddler meaningful auditory integration scale (IT-MAIS) and speech intelligibility rating (SIR) scores preoperatively, at one and two years follow up.

RESULTS

The mean age of implantation was 4 years. The median revised CAP, IT-MAIS, and SIR scores after one and two years of follow-up were 6, 27, 3, and 11, 36, 5 respectively. The mean follow-up duration was 21.3 months.

CONCLUSION

Pre op median revised CAP, IT-MAIS, and SIR scores of 0, 1, 1 showed improvement to 11, 36, 5 at two years follow up which was statistically significant. Hence, we conclude that good functional outcomes post-operatively advocate the significance of cochlear implantation in LVAS.

Precision Medicine Approach to Cochlear Implantation

In the early days of cochlear implantation (CI) surgery, when the types of electrodes were limited and the etiology of sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) was not well understood, the one-size-fits-all approach to CI held true, as in all other fields. However, in the era of personalized medicine, there have been attempts to associate CI performance with the etiology of SNHL and to establish customized surgical techniques that can maximize performance according to individual cochlear dimensions. Personalized genomic-driven assessments of CI candidates and a better understanding of genotype-phenotype correlations could provide clinically applicable diagnostic and prognostic information about questions such as who, how, and when to implant. Rigorous and strategic imaging assessments also provide better insights into the anatomic etiology of SNHL and cochlear dimensions, leading to individualized surgical techniques to augment CI outcomes. Furthermore, the precision medicine approach to CI is not necessarily limited to preoperative planning, but can be extended to either intraoperative electrode positioning or even the timing of the initial switch-on. In this review, we discuss the implications of personalized diagnoses (both genetic and nongenetic) on the planning and performance of CI in patients with prelingual and postlingual SNHL.

Vocal Turn-Taking in Families With Children With and Without Hearing Loss

OBJECTIVE

Vocal turn-taking is an important predictor of language development in children with and without hearing loss. Most studies have examined vocal turn-taking in mother-child dyads without considering the multitalker context in a child's life. The present study investigates the quantity of vocal turns between deaf and hard-of-hearing children and multiple members of their social environment.

DESIGN

Participants were 52 families with children who used hearing aids (HA, mean age 26.3 mo) or cochlear implants (CI, mean age 63.2 mo) and 27 families with normal-hearing (NH, mean age 26.6 mo) children. The Language ENvironment Analysis system estimated the number of conversational turns per hour (CTC/hr) between all family members (i.e., adult female, adult male, target child, and other child) during full-day recordings over a period of about 1 year.

RESULTS

The CTC/hr was lower between the target child and the adult female or adult male in the CI compared with the HA and NH groups. Initially, CTC/hr was higher between the target child and the adult female than between the adult male or the other child. As the child's age increased, turn-taking between the target child and the adult female increased in comparison to that between the target child and the adult male. Over time, turn-taking between the target child and the other child increased and exceeded turn-taking between the target child and the adult caregivers. The increase was observed earlier in families with siblings compared with those without.

CONCLUSIONS

The quantity of vocal turn-taking depends on the degree of child hearing loss and the relationship between the children and the members of their social environment. Longitudinally, the positive effect of an assistive device on the quantity of turns between the children and their family members was found. The effect was stronger in families with siblings.

How to Use the Index of Productive Syntax to Select Goals and Monitor Progress in Preschool Children

PURPOSE

Syntax assessment and treatment is a major focus of speech-language pathologists who work with young children with language needs. The Index of Productive Syntax (IPSyn) provides an efficient method for the assessment of syntax of preschool-age children. The purpose of this tutorial is to illustrate how to hand-score an IPSyn from language sample transcripts and use this information to formulate appropriate syntactic goals.

METHOD

We describe general methods and tips for facilitating hand-scoring. Two case study transcripts of a late talker at 36 and 48 months are provided. One case study transcript is fully scored in IPSyn with detailed explanations; the second case study is provided as a practice example with an IPSyn answer key. Relevant sample probes are provided to assist in the goal of obtaining a representative set of language structures.

RESULTS

We show how the IPSyn can be scored, subscale by subscale, and can highlight developmental stages of syntax following Brown's stages of grammatical development. We illustrate how the visual snapshot developmental nature of the instrument makes it ideal for deriving goals.

CONCLUSION

The IPSyn is a practical and valuable tool for the assessment of syntax of preschool-age children.

Naturalistic Use of Aspect Morphology in Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children

Grammatical morphology often links small acoustic forms to abstract semantic domains. Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children have reduced access to the acoustic signal and frequently have delayed acquisition of grammatical morphology (e.g., Tomblin, Harrison, Ambrose, Walker, Oleson & Moeller, 2015). This study investigated the naturalistic use of aspectual morphology in DHH children to determine if they organize this semantic domain as normal hearing (NH) children have been found to do. Thirty DHH children (M = 6;8) and 29 NH children (M = 5;11) acquiring English participated in a free-play session and their tokens of perfective (simple past) and imperfective (-ing) morphology were coded for the lexical aspect of the predicate they marked. Both groups showed established prototype effects, favoring perfective + telic and imperfective + atelic pairings over perfective + atelic and perfective + atelic ones. Thus, despite reduced access to the acoustic signal, this DHH group was unimpaired for aspectual organization.

The Index of Productive Syntax: Psychometric Properties and Suggested Modifications

PURPOSE

The Index of Productive Syntax (IPSyn) is a well-known language sample analysis tool. However, its psychometric properties have not been assessed across a wide sample of typically developing preschool-age children and children with language disorders. We sought to determine the profile of IPSyn scores by age over early childhood. We additionally explored whether the IPSyn could be shortened to fewer items without loss of information and whether the required language sample could be shortened from a current required number of 100 utterances to 50.

METHOD

We used transcripts from the Child Language Data Exchange System, including 1,051 samples of adult-child conversational play with toys within the theoretical framework of item response theory. Samples included those from typically developing children as well as children with hearing loss, Down syndrome, and late language emergence.

RESULTS

The Verb Phrase and Sentence Structure subscales showed more stable developmental trajectories over the preschool years and greater differentiation between typical and atypical cohorts than did the Noun Phrase and Question/Negation subscales. A number of current IPSyn scoring items can be dropped without loss of information, and 50-utterance samples demonstrate most of the same psychometric properties of longer samples.

DISCUSSION

Our findings suggest ways in which the IPSyn can be automated and streamlined (proposed IPSyn-C) so as to provide useful clinical guidance with fewer items and a shorter required language sample. Reference values for the IPSyn-C are provided. Trajectories for one subscale (Question/Negation) appear inherently unstable and may require structured elicitation. Potential limitations, ramifications, and future directions are discussed.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.16915690.

Disparate Oral and Written Language Abilities in Adolescents With Cochlear Implants: Evidence From Narrative Samples

PURPOSE

In spite of improvements in language outcomes for children with hearing loss (HL) arising from cochlear implants (CIs), these children can falter when it comes to academic achievement, especially in higher grades. Given that writing becomes increasingly relevant to educational pursuits as children progress through school, this study explored the hypothesis that one challenge facing students with CIs may be written language.

METHOD

Participants were 98 eighth graders: 52 with normal hearing (NH) and 46 with severe-to-profound HL who used CIs. Oral and written narratives were elicited and analyzed for morphosyntactic complexity and global narrative features. Five additional measures were collected and analyzed as possible predictors of morphosyntactic complexity: Sentence Comprehension of Syntax, Grammaticality Judgment, Expressive Vocabulary, Forward Digit Span, and Phonological Awareness.

RESULTS

For oral narratives, groups performed similarly on both morphosyntactic complexity and global narrative features; for written narratives, critical differences were observed. Compared with adolescents with NH, adolescents with CIs used fewer markers of morphosyntactic complexity and scored lower on several global narrative features in their written narratives. Adolescents with NH outperformed those with CIs on all potential predictor measures, except for Sentence Comprehension of Syntax. Moderately strong relationships were found between predictor variables and individual measures of morphosyntactic complexity, but no comprehensive pattern explained the results. Measures of morphosyntactic complexity and global narrative features were not well correlated, suggesting these measures are assessing separate underlying constructs.

CONCLUSIONS

Adolescents with CIs fail to show writing proficiency at high school entry equivalent to that of their peers with NH, which could constrain their academic achievement. Interventions for children with CIs need to target writing skills, and writing assessments should be incorporated into diagnostic assessments.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.17139059.

Correlates of Korean Hangul Reading in Children With Hearing Loss

This study examined the associations of vocabulary and phonological and orthographic awareness with Hangul word reading in Korean children, aged between 7 and 10 years, who were deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) and children with typical hearing (TH). The participants were 24 children with hearing aids (HAs), 24 children with cochlear implants (CIs), and 24 TH children in Korea. The three groups were matched for chronological age, vocabulary age, and nonverbal intelligence. Results showed that there were no differences between children with CIs and those with HAs in reading fluency and cognitive skills, except word-reading accuracy, whereas children with CIs and HAs were delayed in all measures compared with their TH peers. Regression analyses showed that syllable and phoneme awareness uniquely explained word-reading accuracy in children with DHH and those with TH. However, word-reading fluency was uniquely explained by syllable awareness in the DHH children and by vocabulary and orthographic awareness in the TH children. These results suggest that DHH and TH children in Korea rely on phonological awareness for Korean word recognition. However, DHH and TH Korean children tend to use different strategies based on sublexical versus lexical information, respectively, to read Korean words fluently.

Morphology and Syntax in Arabic-Speaking Adolescents Who Are Deaf and Hard of Hearing

Purpose Diagnoses, assessments, and treatments, as well as social and language interventions, can be effective in identifying and interpreting specific linguistic features that present special challenges to the language abilities of individuals who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH). This article reports on a study analyzing complex sentences and morphosyntactic error production by Arabic-speaking adolescents who are hearing and DHH. Method A total of 124 adolescents participated, all native speakers of Arabic in Grades 6-10 (63 hearing and 61 DHH). The participants were asked to provide an oral narrative about a dangerous experience. Results Both groups produced a low mean percentage of complex sentences out of the total number of clauses. However, adolescents who are DHH produced significantly fewer complex sentences and more morphosyntactic errors when compared with their hearing peers. The most common errors produced by both groups were clause errors including omission of subject or predicate and errors in word order. Determiner errors were produced significantly more often by adolescents who are DHH. Conclusions To our knowledge, this study is one of the first to investigate morphosyntactic aspects of complex sentences and morphosyntactic errors produced by Arabic-speaking adolescents who are hearing and DHH. This study therefore has significance for further research on language development among Arabic speakers and on definitions of vulnerable linguistic aspects in DHH.

Quality of Life-CI: Development of an Early Childhood Parent-Proxy and Adolescent Version

OBJECTIVES

Severe to profound hearing loss is associated with communication, social, and behavioral difficulties that have been linked to worse health-related quality of life (HRQoL) compared to individuals with normal hearing. HRQoL has been identified as an important health outcome that measures functional ability, particularly for chronic conditions and disabilities. The current study developed the QoL-cochlear implant (CI) for early childhood and adolescents using the recommended Food and Drug Administration and European Medicines Agency guidelines on patient-reported outcomes.

DESIGN

Three phases of instrument development were conducted for both the early childhood (0 to 5 years old; parent proxy) and adolescent/young adult (13 to 22 years old) versions of the QoL-CI. Phase 1 included the development of our conceptual framework, which informed the discussion guides for stakeholder focus groups (e.g., audiologists, physicians, and therapists) at CI clinics in Miami and Philadelphia (n = 39). Open-ended interviews with parents (N = 18 for early childhood; N = 6 for adolescent/young adult version) and adolescents/young adults using CIs (n = 17) were then completed at both sites during phase 2. All interviews were transcribed and coded to identify common themes, which were then used to draft items for the QoL-CI. Both versions of the QoL-CI were developed using Qualtrics to allow for quick, easy electronic administration of the instruments on a tablet device. Last, phase 3 included cognitive testing in a new sample (N = 19 early childhood, N = 19 adolescent) to ensure that the draft instruments were clear, comprehensive, and easy to use.

RESULTS

Participant responses obtained via the open-ended interviews yielded an early childhood and adolescent version of the QoL-CI that was reportedly easy to complete and comprehensive. The final QoL-CI Early Childhood instrument yielded 35 questions across eight functional domains (environmental sounds, communication, social functioning, behavior, CI device management and routines, school, CI benefits, and early intervention). Similarly, the final QoL-CI adolescent/young adult version consisted of 46 items across eight domains (noisy environments, communication, CI usage and management, advocacy, social functioning, emotional functioning, acceptance, and independence).

CONCLUSIONS

The QoL-CI is a condition-specific QoL instrument that can be used for children ages birth through 22 years. These instruments capture the "whole" child by not only focusing on communication and auditory skills but also academic, social and emotional functioning. Once validated, these CI-specific measures will enable providers to track long-term outcomes and evaluate the efficacy of new interventions to improve overall CI use and QoL for pediatric and young adult users.

Self-concept of children and adolescents with cochlear implants

OBJECTIVES

Communicative disorders can complicate social interactions and may be detrimental for one's self-concept. This study aims to assess the self-concept of children with Cochlear Implants (CI). Results of educational peer groups (special needs or typical) were compared. Correlations amongst speech perception, language comprehension, self-concept and other study variables are determined.

METHODS

This retrospectively patient file study contained 53 CI participants with a mean age of 14.2 (SD = 2.8). Self-concept was measured with the Dutch language version of the Self-Perception Profile for Children and Adolescents. Proportions of low, normal and high competence scores were compared to a normative sample. Outcomes were analyzed for the total CI group and for the two educational peer groups.

RESULTS

In the Scholastic Competence, Athletic Competence, Physical Appearance and Behavioral Conduct domains larger proportions of high perceived competence levels were found in the CI Total group compared to the hearing normative sample. Children with CIs in the Mainstream educational subgroup were found to have larger proportions of high levels on these domains. Remarkably, children with CI in the Special hearing impaired educational subgroup reported comparable self-concept scores as their hearing peers. Speech perception and language comprehension were positively correlated to Scholastic Competence.

CONCLUSION

This study has shown that self-concept levels of profoundly hearing impaired children with CI are comparable to those of hearing peers. They are generally satisfied with their functioning in various domains. Better speech perception and language comprehension levels are related to higher outcomes in the Scholastic Competence domain.

Native and non-native listeners' judgements on the overall speech quality of hearing-impaired children

This study focuses on the influence of listeners' native language on their judgement of the overall speech quality of normally hearing (NH) and hearing-impaired (HI) children. Studies have shown that listeners' native language influences their judgements on linguistic aspects of a foreign language. Since judging speech quality does in principle not require any knowledge of the language, the question arose if the native language influences listeners' judgements. For this purpose, the overall speech quality of seven-year-old Dutch speaking children (n = 21) with an acoustic hearing aid (HA), a cochlear implant (CI) and normal hearing (NH) was judged by four listener groups (native speakers of Italian, German, French and Dutch). Listeners completed a comparative judgement task in which stimuli were presented in pairs. For each pair, they selected the better sounding stimulus. This procedure ultimately led to a ranking of the stimuli according to their speech quality. The ranking showed that NH children had a significantly higher speech quality than HI children. Interestingly, there was no significant effect of language background. Both native and non-native listeners perceived a significant difference in speech quality. Also, within the group of HI children, all listener groups preferred the speech of CI children when comparing them to HA children. These results indicated that the differences were purely speech related since the non-native listeners had no linguistic knowledge of Dutch. Considering that all listeners perceived a similar qualitative difference, we conclude that there was no transfer of native language in this type of judgement.

Relationship between sensitivity to temporal fine structure and spoken language abilities in children with mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss

Children with sensorineural hearing loss show considerable variability in spoken language outcomes. The present study tested whether specific deficits in supra-threshold auditory perception might contribute to this variability. In a previous study by Halliday, Rosen, Tuomainen, and Calcus [(2019). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 146, 4299], children with mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss (MMHL) were shown to perform more poorly than those with normal hearing (NH) on measures designed to assess sensitivity to the temporal fine structure (TFS; the rapid oscillations in the amplitude of narrowband signals over short time intervals). However, they performed within normal limits on measures assessing sensitivity to the envelope (E; the slow fluctuations in the overall amplitude). Here, individual differences in unaided sensitivity to the TFS accounted for significant variance in the spoken language abilities of children with MMHL after controlling for nonverbal intelligence quotient, family history of language difficulties, and hearing loss severity. Aided sensitivity to the TFS and E cues was equally important for children with MMHL, whereas for children with NH, E cues were more important. These findings suggest that deficits in TFS perception may contribute to the variability in spoken language outcomes in children with sensorineural hearing loss.

Vowel duration measurement in school-age children with cochlear implant

OBJECTIVES

Normal hearing system is an essential factor for accurate production of speech segments. It seems that cochlear implant prosthesis helps children with hearing impairment to speak more accurately than before receiving prosthesis. The current research aimed to compare the vowel duration in school-aged children with cochlear implants and that in children with normal hearing. Additionally, the performance of girls and boys in two groups were investigated.

METHODS

A cross-sectional and descriptive-analytical study was carried out to compare the vowel duration in 9- to 12-year-old children with cochlear implant and those with normal hearing. Participants were 52 children who were matched by age and sex. We asked the children to read the target words with each word including one vowel and then participants' voice samples were recorded. Then, vowel duration was measured using Praat software. Finally, the vowel duration was compared between the two groups running independent sample t-test. The level of significance was (P < 0.05).

RESULTS

There was no statistically significant difference observed between the two groups in the mean values of the vowel duration for the six Persian vowels (P > 0.05). Also, no significant difference was found between boys and girls in the mean value of the vowel duration between the two groups (P > 0.05).

CONCLUSION

Persian vowels in school-aged children with cochlear implant and with typical hearing are produced with similar durations. This finding is probably related to the increased duration of using prosthesis in this age range and speech mode used to measure vowel duration in the present study.

Machine-Scored Syntax: Comparison of the CLAN Automatic Scoring Program to Manual Scoring

Purpose The results of automatic machine scoring of the Index of Productive Syntax from the Computerized Language ANalysis (CLAN) tools of the Child Language Data Exchange System of TalkBank (MacWhinney, 2000) were compared to manual scoring to determine the accuracy of the machine-scored method. Method Twenty transcripts of 10 children from archival data of the Weismer Corpus from the Child Language Data Exchange System at 30 and 42 months were examined. Measures of absolute point difference and point-to-point accuracy were compared, as well as points erroneously given and missed. Two new measures for evaluating automatic scoring of the Index of Productive Syntax were introduced: Machine Item Accuracy (MIA) and Cascade Failure Rate- these measures further analyze points erroneously given and missed. Differences in total scores, subscale scores, and individual structures were also reported. Results Mean absolute point difference between machine and hand scoring was 3.65, point-to-point agreement was 72.6%, and MIA was 74.9%. There were large differences in subscales, with Noun Phrase and Verb Phrase subscales generally providing greater accuracy and agreement than Question/Negation and Sentence Structures subscales. There were significantly more erroneous than missed items in machine scoring, attributed to problems of mistagging of elements, imprecise search patterns, and other errors. Cascade failure resulted in an average of 4.65 points lost per transcript. Conclusions The CLAN program showed relatively inaccurate outcomes in comparison to manual scoring on both traditional and new measures of accuracy. Recommendations for improvement of the program include accounting for second exemplar violations and applying cascaded credit, among other suggestions. It was proposed that research on machine-scored syntax routinely report accuracy measures detailing erroneous and missed scores, including MIA, so that researchers and clinicians are aware of the limitations of a machine-scoring program. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.11984364.

The Acquisition of Productive Plural Morphology by Children With Hearing Loss

Purpose Normal-hearing (NH) children acquire plural morphemes at different rates, with the segmental allomorphs /-s, -z/ (e.g., cat-s) being acquired before the syllabic allomorph /-əz/ (e.g., bus-es). Children with hearing loss (HL) have been reported to show delays in the production of plural morphology, raising the possibility that this might be due to challenges acquiring different types of lexical/morphological representations. This study therefore examined the comprehension of plural morphology by 3- to 7-year-olds with HL and compared this with performance by their NH peers. We also investigated comprehension as a function of wearing hearing aids (HAs) versus cochlear implants (CIs). Method Participants included 129 NH children aged 3-5 years and 25 children with HL aged 3-7 years (13 with HAs, 12 with CIs). All participated in a novel word two-alternative forced-choice task presented on an iPad. The task tested comprehension of the segmental (e.g., teps, mubz) and syllabic (e.g., kosses) plural, as well as their singular counterparts (e.g., tep, mub, koss). Results While the children with NH were above chance for all conditions, those with HL performed at chance. As a group, the performance of the children with HL did not improve with age. However, results suggest possible differences between children with HAs and those with CIs, where those with HAs appeared to be in the process of developing representations of consonant-vowel-consonant singulars. Conclusions Results suggest that preschoolers with HL do not yet have a robust representation of plural morphology for words they have not heard before. However, those with HAs are beginning to access the singular/plural system as they get older.

The Effect of Age at Cochlear Implantation on Speech and Auditory Performances in Prelingually Deaf Children

To understand the effect of age at implantation on speech and auditory performances of 74 prelingually deaf Indian children after using cochlear implants for 3, 6 and 12 months. We also evaluate the causes of late implantation in this population. Seventy four children who underwent cochlear implantation from December 2013 to December 2015 in the Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head Neck Cancer in SMS Medical College, Jaipur were participated in this study. To compare the efficacy of cochlear implant, candidates are classified into 2 groups according to the age at the time of implantation: 1-4 years and 4.1-7 years. The sample size is 37 in both age groups. Their auditory performance and speech intelligibility were rated using the Revised Categories of Auditory Perception scales, Speech Intelligibility Rating scales and Meaningful Auditory Integration Scale. The evaluations were made before implantation and 3, 6 and 12 months after implantation. The scores when compared in both the groups revealed that the results were comparable and significant after 12 months of follow up while the scores were not significant after 3 and 6 months. The results were statistically significant when baseline is compared with different postoperative stages. The children implanted before the age of 4 years had significantly better auditory and linguistic performances. At least 12 months of audio-verbal rehabilitation and speech and language therapy are required to compare the effects of cochlear implant in any set of children. Our study shows that hearing impaired children who receive cochlear implantation below 4 years of age acquires better auditory ability for developing language skills.

Rating the overall speech quality of hearing-impaired children by means of comparative judgements

OBJECTIVE

Acoustic measurements have shown that the speech of hearing-impaired (HI) children deviates from the speech of normally hearing (NH) peers. The aim of the present study is to examine whether listeners with varying degrees of experience with (HI) children's speech perceive a difference in the overall speech quality of seven-year-old NH children and their HI peers who received a device before the age of two.

METHOD

Short speech samples of seven children with NH, seven children with an acoustic hearing aid (HA) and seven children with a cochlear implant (CI) were judged by three groups of listeners (audiologists, primary school teachers and inexperienced listeners) in a comparative judgement task. In this task, listeners compared stimuli in pairs and decided which stimulus sounded better, leading to a ranking of the stimuli according to their overall speech quality.

RESULTS

The ranking showed that the overall speech quality differed considerably for HI and NH children. The latter group had a significantly higher overall speech quality than HI children. In the group of HI children, children with CI were ranked higher than children with HA. Moreover, length of device use was found to have a significant effect in the group of children with CI: longer device experience led to better ratings. This effect was significantly less strong in HA children. No significant differences were found between the three groups of listeners.

CONCLUSION

Listeners agree that the speech of NH children sounds better than the speech of HI children. This result indicates that even after almost seven years of device use, the speech of HI children still differs from the speech of NH children. The overall speech quality of CI children was better than that of HA children, and this effect increased with longer device use. No effect of listeners' experience with (NH and/or HI) children's speech was established.

Effects of Age at Cochlear Implantation on Vocabulary and Grammar: A Review of the Evidence

Purpose The increasing prevalence of pediatric cochlear implantation over the past 25 years has left little doubt that resulting improvements in hearing offer significant benefits to language development for many deaf children. Furthermore, given the documented importance of access to language from birth, there has been strong support for providing congenitally deaf children with implants as early as possible. Earliest implantation, in many ways, has become the "gold standard" in pediatric cochlear implantation, on the assumption that it is the key to language development similar to that of hearing children. Empirical evidence to support this assumption, however, appears more equivocal than generally is believed. This article reviews recent research aimed at assessing the impact of age at implantation on vocabulary and grammatical development among young implant users. Method Articles published between 2003 and 2018 that included age at implantation as a variable of interest and in which it was subjected to statistical analysis were considered. Effect sizes were calculated whenever possible; we conducted a multivariate meta-analysis to compare outcomes in different language domains. Results Taken together, findings from 49 studies suggest that age at implantation is just one of a host of variables that influence vocabulary and grammatical development, its impact varying with several factors including whether age at implantation is treated as a dichotomous or continuous variable. Results from a meta-analysis showed significant differences across language domains. Conclusion The pattern of results obtained indicates the importance of considering various child, family, and environmental characteristics in future research aimed at determining how early "early implantation" needs to be and the extent to which age at implantation, duration of implant use, and other factors influence language and language-related outcomes. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.9789041.

Enlarged Vestibular Aqueduct and Cochlear Implants: The Effect of Early Counseling on the Length of Time Between Candidacy and Implantation

OBJECTIVE

To determine if discussing cochlear implantation (CI) with patients with enlarged vestibular aqueducts (EVA) and their families before reaching audiological criteria for CI candidacy effects the length of time between reaching audiological candidacy and CI surgery, and to describe the universal newborn hearing screening (UNHS) results and communication modality in this sample.

PATIENTS

Forty-two patients (25 females) with confirmed EVA and cochlear implants.

INTERVENTION(S)

Diagnostic CI visit.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

The primary outcome measure is the difference in length of time between reaching audiological candidacy for CI and surgical implantation between those who had preliminary discussions regarding CI with their medical and healthcare providers before reaching audiological candidacy versus who had discussions after reaching candidacy. The secondary outcome measure is the result of the UNHS and primary mode of communication used by each patient.

RESULTS

Discussing CI before reaching audiological candidacy was associated with a significantly shorter duration between reaching audiological candidacy and receiving CI (median = 3.1 mo; interquartile range [IQR] = 1.7-5.4) as compared with discussing CI after reaching candidacy (median = 5.8 mo; IQR = 3.2-11.2; p = 0.012). Participants born after the implementation of the UNHS, 16 of 24 patients referred on one or both ears. Communication modalities were evenly divided between utilizing sign-support English and oral/aural communicators only.

CONCLUSIONS

Discussion of CI in patients with EVA before reaching audiological candidacy reduces the amount of time the child is without adequate auditory access and contributes to a constructive and interactive preparatory experience.

Bilingual Preschoolers' Spontaneous Productions: Considering Jamaican Creole and English

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to characterize grammatical production in Jamaican Creole (JC) and English using the Index of Productive Syntax (IPSyn; Scarborough, 1990 ) in a sample of typically developing bilingual Jamaicans.

Method

Spontaneous language samples were collected in JC and English from 62 preschoolers aged 4–6 years. Language samples were analyzed for IPSyn subdomains (Total Score, Noun Phrases, Verb Phrases, Questions/Negations, Sentence Structures), mean length of utterance in morphemes, and number of different words. Child and family demographic information were also collected along with nonverbal IQ performance.

Results

IPSyn Total Score in JC and English were significantly correlated, and significant correlations were found between IPSyn subdomains in each language for Noun Phrases, Verb Phrases, and Sentence Structures, but not Questions/Negations. Item analysis for the IPSyn items showed that only 7 of the 56 items did not perform similarly in both languages, with performance on only 2 of these being significantly different. IPSyn scores in both languages were correlated with mean length of utterance in morphemes and number of different words, but only IPSyn JC was correlated with nonverbal IQ and age.

Conclusion

The IPSyn shows promise as a mainstream tool useful in characterizing grammatical productions across languages in typically developing bilingual Jamaican preschoolers.

Which Questions Do Children With Cochlear Implants Understand? An Eye-Tracking Study

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate the processing of morphosyntactic cues (case and verb agreement) by children with cochlear implants (CIs) in German which-questions, where interpretation depends on these morphosyntactic cues. The aim was to examine whether children with CIs who perceive the different cues also make use of them in speech comprehension and processing in the same way as children with normal hearing (NH). Method Thirty-three children with CIs (age 7;01-12;04 years;months, M = 9;07, bilaterally implanted before age 3;3) and 36 children with NH (age 7;05-10;09 years, M = 9;01) received a picture selection task with eye tracking to test their comprehension of subject, object, and passive which-questions. Two screening tasks tested their auditory discrimination of case morphology and their perception and comprehension of subject-verb agreement. Results Children with CIs who performed well on the screening tests still showed more difficulty on the comprehension of object questions than children with NH, whereas they comprehended subject questions and passive questions equally well as children with NH. There was large interindividual variability within the CI group. The gaze patterns of children with NH showed reanalysis effects for object questions disambiguated later in the sentence by verb agreement, but not for object questions disambiguated by case at the first noun phrase. The gaze patterns of children with CIs showed reanalysis effects even for object questions disambiguated at the first noun phrase. Conclusions Even when children with CIs perceive case and subject-verb agreement, their ability to use these cues for offline comprehension and online processing still lags behind normal development, which is reflected in lower performance rates and longer processing times. Individual variability within the CI group can partly be explained by working memory and hearing age. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.7728731.

Cochlear Implantation for Children and Adults with Severe-to-Profound Hearing Loss

Cochlear implants (CIs) have proven to be a useful treatment option for individuals with severe-to-profound hearing loss by providing improved access to one's surrounding auditory environment. CIs differ from traditional acoustic amplification by providing information to the auditory system via electrical stimulation. Both postlingually deafened adults and prelingually deafened children can benefit from a CI; however, outcomes with a CI can vary. Numerous factors can impact performance outcomes with a CI. It is important for the audiologist to understand what factors might play a role and impact performance outcomes with a CI so that they can effectively counsel the recipient and their family, as well as establish appropriate and realistic expectations with a CI. This review article will discuss the CI candidacy process, CI programming and postoperative follow-up care, as well as considerations across the lifespan that may affect performance outcomes with a CI.

Relationship between working memory and comprehension and expression of grammar in Farsi-speaking children with cochlear implants

OBJECTIVES

Grammar is one of the most fundamental components of language and working memory (WM) is one of the most important cognitive features. These two skills play a vital role in learning, literacy and communication. Children with cochlear implants (CIs) experience delays in both of these skills. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between these two skills in children with CIs.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS

The sample consisted of 20 Farsi-speaking children with CIs. WM was estimated by forward and backward auditory digit spans (FBS and BDS) from the Persian (Farsi) version of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, 4th edition. The comprehension of grammar by participants was evaluated using the Persian Syntax Comprehension Test. Grammar expression was assessed using the Photographic Expressive Persian Grammar Test. Pearson's correlation and simple linear regression were used for data analysis.

RESULTS

The results of linear regression and correlation showed a strong correlation between comprehension of grammar and FDS (r = 0.61; p = 0.004) was obtained, between BDS and comprehension of grammar (r = 0.161; p = 0.080). FDS and expression of grammar (r = 0.163; p = 0.222) showed a positive but insignificant correlation.

CONCLUSION

The results indicate that WM decisively effects grammar. Enhancement of the phonological loop can improve grammar, especially comprehension of grammar. The effect of the central executive in grammar requires further research.

Can listeners hear the difference between children with normal hearing and children with a hearing impairment?

Acoustic measurements have shown that the speech of hearing-impaired (HI) children differs from that of normally hearing (NH) children, even after several years of device use. This study focuses on the perception of HI speech in comparison to NH children's speech. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether adult listeners can identify the speech of NH and HI children. Moreover, it is studied whether listeners' experience and the children's length of device use play a role in that assessment. For this study, short utterances of 7 children with a cochlear implant (CI), 7 children with an acoustic hearing aid (HA) and 7 children with NH were presented to 90 listeners who were required to specify the hearing status of each speech sample. The judges had different degrees of familiarity with hearing disorders: there were 30 audiologists, 30 primary schoolteachers and 30 inexperienced listeners. The results show that the speech of children with NH and HI can reliably be identified. However, listeners do not manage to distinguish between children with CI and HA. Children with CI are increasingly identified as NH with increasing length of device use. For children with HA, there is no similar change with longer device use. Also, experienced listeners seem to display a more lenient attitude towards atypical speech, whereas inexperienced listeners are stricter and generally consider more utterances to be produced by children with HI.

Attention to speech and spoken language development in deaf children with cochlear implants: a 10-year longitudinal study

Early auditory/language experience plays an important role in language development. In this study, we examined the effects of severe-to-profound hearing loss and subsequent cochlear implantation on the development of attention to speech in children with cochlear implants (CIs). In addition, we investigated the extent to which attention to speech may predict spoken language development in children with CIs. We tested children with CIs and compared them to chronologically age-matched peers with normal hearing (NH) on their attention to speech at four time points post implantation; specifically, less than 1 month, 3 to 6 months, 12 months, and 18 months post implantation. We also collected a variety of well-established speech perception and spoken language measures from the children with CIs in a 10-year longitudinal study. Children with CIs showed reduced attention to speech as compared to their peers with NH at less than 1 month post implantation, but a similar degree of attention to speech as their NH peers during later time points. In addition, attention to speech at 3 to 6 months post implantation predicts speech perception in children with CIs. These results inform language acquisition theories and bring insights into our understanding of early severe-to-profound hearing loss on infants' attention to speech skills. In addition, the findings have significant clinical implications for early intervention on hearing loss, which emphasizes the importance of developing strong listening skills. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7xiYo3Ua08&feature=youtu.be.

The Acoustics of Word-Initial Fricatives and Their Effect on Word-Level Intelligibility in Children With Bilateral Cochlear Implants

OBJECTIVES

Previous research has found that relative to their peers with normal hearing (NH), children with cochlear implants (CIs) produce the sibilant fricatives /s/ and /∫/ less accurately and with less subphonemic acoustic contrast. The present study sought to further investigate these differences across groups in two ways. First, subphonemic acoustic properties were investigated in terms of dynamic acoustic features that indexed more than just the contrast between /s/ and /∫/. Second, the authors investigated whether such differences in subphonemic acoustic contrast between sibilant fricatives affected the intelligibility of sibilant-initial single word productions by children with CIs and their peers with NH.

DESIGN

In experiment 1, productions of /s/ and /∫/ in word-initial prevocalic contexts were elicited from 22 children with bilateral CIs (aged 4 to 7 years) who had at least 2 years of CI experience and from 22 chronological age-matched peers with NH. Acoustic features were measured from 17 points across the fricatives: peak frequency was measured to index the place of articulation contrast; spectral variance and amplitude drop were measured to index the degree of sibilance. These acoustic trajectories were fitted with growth-curve models to analyze time-varying spectral change. In experiment 2, phonemically accurate word productions that were elicited in experiment 1 were embedded within four-talker babble and played to 80 adult listeners with NH. Listeners were asked to repeat the words, and their accuracy rate was used as a measure of the intelligibility of the word productions. Regression analyses were run to test which acoustic properties measured in experiment 1 predicted the intelligibility scores from experiment 2.

RESULTS

The peak frequency trajectories indicated that the children with CIs produced less acoustic contrast between /s/ and /∫/. Group differences were observed in terms of the dynamic aspects (i.e., the trajectory shapes) of the acoustic properties. In the productions by children with CIs, the peak frequency and the amplitude drop trajectories were shallower, and the spectral variance trajectories were more asymmetric, exhibiting greater increases in variance (i.e., reduced sibilance) near the fricative-vowel boundary. The listeners' responses to the word productions indicated that when produced by children with CIs, /∫/-initial words were significantly more intelligible than /s/-initial words. However, when produced by children with NH, /s/-initial words and /∫/-initial words were equally intelligible. Intelligibility was partially predicted from the acoustic properties (Cox & Snell pseudo-R > 0.190), and the significant predictors were predominantly dynamic, rather than static, ones.

CONCLUSIONS

Productions from children with CIs differed from those produced by age-matched NH controls in terms of their subphonemic acoustic properties. The intelligibility of sibilant-initial single-word productions by children with CIs is sensitive to the place of articulation of the initial consonant (/∫/-initial words were more intelligible than /s/-initial words), but productions by children with NH were equally intelligible across both places of articulation. Therefore, children with CIs still exhibit differential production abilities for sibilant fricatives at an age when their NH peers do not.

Early Reading Development in Chinese-speaking Children with Hearing Loss

This study aims to explore early reading comprehension in Chinese-speaking children with hearing loss (HL) by examining character recognition and linguistic comprehension. Twenty-five children with HL received three measures relevant to character reading: phonological awareness (PA), morphological awareness (MA), and character recognition; two linguistic-comprehension measures: receptive vocabulary knowledge and listening comprehension; and one reading comprehension measure. Three demographic variables pertinent to children with HL were also taken into account. The results showed that the degree of HL was significantly related to reading comprehension, receptive vocabulary knowledge, and listening comprehension, the latter two of which were further correlated with the type of hearing device; however, the hearing age was associated with neither of the measures. MA made a unique contribution to character reading in the presence of PA, but the reverse was not true. Linguistic comprehension significantly accounted for additional variance in reading comprehension over and above character recognition but not vice versa. A further analysis controlling for character recognition revealed that receptive vocabulary knowledge was more contributive to early reading comprehension than was listening comprehension. The results of the current investigation have potential to inform educational practice in teaching and/or intervening Chinese children with HL regarding their reading skills.

Sensitivity of expressive linguistic domains to surgery age and audibility of speech in preschoolers with cochlear implants

OBJECTIVES

To determine whether relative delays among domains exist in the conversational use of vocabulary, syntax, and morphology by children with cochlear implants (CIs) and whether these were differentially affected by age of implantation (AOI) and the audibility of speech.

METHODS

Participants in this short-term longitudinal study were 126 children with AOI of 6-38 months and a matched group of 30 children without hearing loss. Language samples of the same children at ages 3.5 and 4.5 were analyzed for the breadth of vocabulary and bound morphemes used, and sentence length.

RESULTS

At both test ages, expressive language domains were delayed equally. Higher performance across domains was independently associated with younger AOI and better pre-implant-aided thresholds. No domain was affected differently by very early implantation, but bound morpheme breadth was associated with better CI-aided thresholds. Between 63 and 78% of children with AOI of 6-11 months scored close to hearing age-mates by 4.5, a level achieved by fewer than 25% of those with AOI of 19-24 months or later ages.

DISCUSSION

Previous studies indicated greater language delays in the areas of morphology and syntax than those of vocabulary, with the earliest ages of implantation conferring the greatest benefit to those domains. The current design addressed inconsistency across studies in modes of communication used, presence/absence of other disabilities, and differences in language domains chosen as outcome measures.

CONCLUSIONS

Linguistic domains benefitted equally from early implantation, regardless of the duration of auditory stimulation. Better pre-CI-aided hearing often compensated for later AOI. Bound morpheme use was greater with better CI-aided thresholds.

Waiting for lexical access: Cochlear implants or severely degraded input lead listeners to process speech less incrementally

Spoken language unfolds over time. Consequently, there are brief periods of ambiguity, when incomplete input can match many possible words. Typical listeners solve this problem by immediately activating multiple candidates which compete for recognition. In two experiments using the visual world paradigm, we examined real-time lexical competition in prelingually deaf cochlear implant (CI) users, and normal hearing (NH) adults listening to severely degraded speech. In Experiment 1, adolescent CI users and NH controls matched spoken words to arrays of pictures including pictures of the target word and phonological competitors. Eye-movements to each referent were monitored asa measure of how strongly that candidate was considered over time. Relative to NH controls, CI users showed a large delay in fixating any object, less competition from onset competitors (e.g., sandwich after hearing sandal), and increased competition from rhyme competitors (e.g., candle after hearing sandal). Experiment 2 observed the same pattern with NH listeners hearing highly degraded speech. These studies suggests that in contrast to all prior studies of word recognition in typical listeners, listeners recognizing words in severely degraded conditions can exhibit a substantively different pattern of dynamics, waiting to begin lexical access until substantial information has accumulated.

Spoken language and everyday functioning in 5-year-old children using hearing aids or cochlear implants

OBJECTIVE

This study investigated the factors influencing 5-year language, speech and everyday functioning of children with congenital hearing loss.

DESIGN

Standardised tests including PLS-4, PPVT-4 and DEAP were directly administered to children. Parent reports on language (CDI) and everyday functioning (PEACH) were collected. Regression analyses were conducted to examine the influence of a range of demographic variables on outcomes.

STUDY SAMPLE

Participants were 339 children enrolled in the Longitudinal Outcomes of Children with Hearing Impairment (LOCHI) study.

RESULTS

Children's average receptive and expressive language scores were approximately 1 SD below the mean of typically developing children, and scores on speech production and everyday functioning were more than 1 SD below. Regression models accounted for 70-23% of variance in scores across different tests. Earlier CI switch-on and higher non-verbal ability were associated with better outcomes in most domains. Earlier HA fitting and use of oral communication were associated with better outcomes on directly administered language assessments. Severity of hearing loss and maternal education influenced outcomes of children with HAs. The presence of additional disabilities affected outcomes of children with CIs.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings provide strong evidence for the benefits of early HA fitting and early CI for improving children's outcomes.

Feasibility of a Recasting and Auditory Bombardment Treatment With Young Cochlear Implant Users

PURPOSE

There is little to guide clinicians in terms of evidence-based interventions for children with cochlear implants who demonstrate morpheme errors. This feasibility study tested the utility of a treatment targeting grammatical morpheme errors.

METHOD

Three children (ages 4-5 years) received Enhanced Conversational Recast treatment, a version of conversational recast treatment that focuses on a single morpheme error at a time, emphasizes attention to clinician input, and uses high linguistic variability with clinician input. A period of recasting was followed by 24 auditory presentations of the target morpheme in short sentences. After an initial baseline period, children were treated in individual sessions over 21-26 days.

RESULTS

All children showed improved use of targeted grammatical morpheme use, both in elicited contexts and in terms of spontaneous use. Spontaneous use was best for the 2 children who were implanted earliest and whose audiograms showed the best hearing postimplant. Performance by a 3rd child diagnosed with auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder was more variable but still showed positive change.

CONCLUSIONS

The results indicate that the treatment can be effective for children with cochlear implants. The pattern of results across children also suggests potential variables that may moderate treatment effects.

Prelingual Deafness: An Overview of Treatment Outcome

Prelingually deaf child is one who is either born deaf or who lost his or her hearing early in childhood, before acquiring language. A child with subnormal hearing acuity suffers from consequences of hearing loss compounded by impaired speech development. The period from birth to 3 years of life is critical for the development of speech and language, therefore, there is need for early identification and assessment of hearing loss and early rehabilitation in children. 40 patients were evaluated clinically, radiologically and audiologically to assess the degree of patient's handicap. The modes of treatment included use of hearing aid in patients with moderate, moderately-severe, severe or profound HL and cochlear implantation in patients with profound HL. Each patient was followed for 18 months and results were calculated in terms of speech perception (CAP) and language (REELS) development of the patient. Out of the 40 patients, 60% (n = 24) were females and 40% (16) were males. 50% (n = 20) patients had PSNHL, 32.5% (n = 13) had SSNHL, 10% (n = 4) had MSSNHL and 7.5% (n = 3) had MSNHL. 30% (n = 12) of patients had significant radiological findings. Among the hearing aid users patients with PSNHL got no benefit at the end of 18 months whereas the patients with cochlear implantation had significant improvement. Also the patients managed at a younger age (<3 years) had a significantly better outcome then those managed later. Early identification of hearing loss, that is followed by immediate and appropriate intervention results in better language, speech, and social-emotional development when compared to children treated at a later age.

Simultaneous communication supports learning in noise by cochlear implant users

OBJECTIVES

This study sought to evaluate the potential of using spoken language and signing together (simultaneous communication, SimCom, sign-supported speech) as a means of improving speech recognition, comprehension, and learning by cochlear implant (CI) users in noisy contexts.

METHODS

Forty eight college students who were active CI users, watched videos of three short presentations, the text versions of which were standardized at the 8^th-grade reading level. One passage was presented in spoken language only, one was presented in spoken language with multi-talker babble background noise, and one was presented via simultaneous communication with the same background noise. Following each passage, participants responded to 10 (standardized) open-ended questions designed to assess comprehension. Indicators of participants' spoken language and sign language skills were obtained via self-reports and objective assessments.

RESULTS

When spoken materials were accompanied by signs, scores were significantly higher than when materials were spoken in noise without signs. Participants' receptive spoken language skills significantly predicted scores in all three conditions; neither their receptive sign skills nor age of implantation predicted performance.

DISCUSSION

Students who are CI users typically rely solely on spoken language in the classroom. The present results, however, suggest that there are potential benefits of simultaneous communication for such learners in noisy settings. For those CI users who know sign language, the redundancy of speech and signs potentially can offset the reduced fidelity of spoken language in noise.

CONCLUSION

Accompanying spoken language with signs can benefit learners who are CI users in noisy situations such as classroom settings. Factors associated with such benefits, such as receptive skills in signed and spoken modalities, classroom acoustics, and material difficulty need to be empirically examined.

Mandarin Tone Identification in Cochlear Implant Users Using Exaggerated Pitch Contours

OBJECTIVE

To determine whether exaggerating the variations in fundamental frequency (F0) contours of Mandarin-based pitch fluctuations could improve tone identification by cochlear implant (CI) users.

METHODS

Twelve normal-hearing (NH) listeners and 11 CI users were tested for their ability to recognize F0 contours modeled after Mandarin tones, in 4- or 5-alternatives forced-choice paradigms. Two types of stimuli were used: computer-generated complex tones and voice recordings. Four contours were tested with voice recordings: flat, rise, fall, and dip. A fifth contour, peak, was added for complex tones. The F0 range of each contour was varied in an adaptive manner. A maximum-likelihood technique was used to fit a psychometric function to the performance data and extract threshold at 70% accuracy.

RESULTS

As F0 range increased, performance in tone identification improved but did not reach 100% for some CI users, suggesting that confusions between contours could always be made even with extremely exaggerated contours. Compared with NH participants, CI users required substantially larger F0 ranges to identify tones, on the order of 9.3 versus 0.4 semitones. CI users achieved better performance for complex tones than for voice recordings, whereas the reverse was true for NH participants. Confusion matrices showed that the "flat" tone was often a default option when the tone contour's F0 range presented was too narrow for participants to respond correctly.

CONCLUSION

These results demonstrate markedly impaired ability for CI users to identify tonal contours, but suggest that the use of exaggerated pitch contours may be helpful for tonal language perception.

Comparison of auditory comprehension skills in children with cochlear implant and typically developing children

OBJECTIVE

The main goal of this study was to obtain auditory comprehension skills of native Hindi speaking children with cochlear implant and typically developing children across the age of 3-7 years and compare the scores between two groups.

METHODOLOGY

A total of sixty Hindi speaking participants were selected for the study. They were divided into two groups- Group-A consisted of thirty children with normal hearing and Group-B thirty children using cochlear implants. To assess the auditory comprehension skills, Test of auditory comprehension in Hindi (TACH) was used. The participant was required to point to one of three pictures which would best correspond to the stimulus presented. Correct answers were scored as 1 and incorrect answers as 0.

RESULTS

TACH was administered on for both groups. Independent t-test was applied and it was found that auditory comprehension scores of children using cochlear implant were significantly poorer than the score of children with normal hearing for all three subtests. Pearson's correlation coefficient revealed poor correlation between the scores of children with normal hearing and children using cochlear implant.

CONCLUSION

The results of this study suggest that children using cochlear implant have poor auditory comprehension skills than children with normal hearing.

Tone Perception of Cantonese-Speaking Prelingually Hearing-Impaired Children with Cochlear Implants

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate tone perception performance in Cantonese-speaking prelingually hearing-impaired children with cochlear implants.

STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: The ability to discriminate and identify Cantonese tones was evaluated on 17 native Cantonese-speaking prelingually hearing-impaired children. Performance was correlated to factors like age of implantation and general communication ability.

RESULTS: Subjects' performance in discrimination and identification tasks was slightly above chance level. Although variations in the contour fundamental frequency of the tones provided some cues for tone discrimination, these distinctions proved insufficient for subjects to perform well. Tone 6 (low level tone) was the most difficult to identify. Subjects' performance did not correlate with gender, age of implantation, duration of implant use, frequency of auditory training session, or general communication ability.

CONCLUSION: Although some children were able to discriminate and/or identify Cantonese tones, their performance was poor. Further studies are needed to understand how tone perception relate to daily speech understanding.

SIGNIFICANCE: Cochlear implant speech coding strategies may need modification to optimize tone perception. (Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 2004; 130:751-8.)

Objective Voice Analysis of Pediatric Cochlear Implant Recipients and Comparison With Hearing Aids Users and Hearing Controls

OBJECTIVES

Phonation is influenced by hearing as a feedback mechanism. The purpose of the present study was to compare selected acoustic parameters in children using cochlear implants (CIs), those using hearing aids (HA), and their normal-hearing (NH) peers.

METHODS

The participants were 15 children using CI (mean age: 72 months), 15 children using HA (mean age: 74 months), and 15 NH children (mean age: 77 months). The vowel /a/ was produced to measure perturbation and mean fundamental frequency. The six Persian vowels in /C_bVC_d/ were obtained to extract vowel duration. Data were analyzed by one-way analysis of variance.

RESULTS

Results revealed a statistically significant difference between the NH group and the HA group regarding fundamental frequency (F_2,51 = 3.443, P < 0.05), jitter local (F_2,51 = 1.629, P < 0.05), jitter local absolute (F_2,51 = 6.519, P < 0.001), jitter rap (F_2,51 = 7.151, P < 0.001), jitter ppq5 (F_2,51 = 5.894, P < 0.001), shimmer local (%) (F_2,51 = 8.070, P < 0.001), shimmer local (dB) (F_2,51 = 3.884, P < 0.05), shimmer apq3 (F_2,51 = 4.926, P < 0.05), shimmer apq5 (F_2,51 = 8.442, P < 0.001), and harmonic-to-noise ratio (F_2,51 = 4.117, P < 0.001). The mean values of the duration of all six vowels were significantly greater in children with CI and HA than in NH children (P < 0.001).

CONCLUSION

It seems that after 8 months of using CI, auditory control of voice production would be enabled. Furthermore, children with hearing impairment potentially regard vowel sound duration as a distinguishing feature, whereas in NH speakers, the duration has the least effect in vowel identification.

Mandarin Lexical Tone Acquisition in Cochlear Implant Users With Prelingual Deafness: A Review

PURPOSE

The purpose of this review article is to synthesize evidence from the fields of developmental linguistics and cochlear implant technology relevant to the production and perception of Mandarin lexical tone in cochlear implant users with prelingual deafness. The aim of this review was to identify potential factors that determine outcomes for tonal-language speaking cochlear implant users and possible directions for further research.

METHOD

A computerized database search of MEDLINE, CINAHL, Academic Search Premier, Web of Science, and Google Scholar was undertaken in June and July 2014. Search terms used were lexical tone AND tonal language, speech development AND/OR speech production AND/OR speech perception AND cochlear implants, and pitch perception AND cochlear implants, anywhere in the title or abstract.

CONCLUSION

Despite the demonstrated limitations of pitch perception in cochlear implant users, there is some evidence that typical production and perception of lexical tone is possible by cochlear implant users with prelingual deafness. Further studies are required to determine the factors that contribute to better outcomes to inform rehabilitation processes for cochlear implant users in tonal-language environments.

Linguistic profiles of children with CI as compared with children with hearing or specific language impairment

BACKGROUND

The spoken language difficulties of children with moderate or severe to profound hearing loss are mainly related to limited auditory speech perception. However, degraded or filtered auditory input as evidenced in children with cochlear implants (CIs) may result in less efficient or slower language processing as well. To provide insight into the underlying nature of the spoken language difficulties in children with CIs, linguistic profiles of children with CIs are compared with those of hard-of-hearing (HoH) children with conventional hearing aids and children with specific language impairment (SLI).

AIMS

To examine differences in linguistic abilities and profiles of children with CIs as compared with HoH children and children with SLI, and whether the spoken language difficulties of children with CIs mainly lie in limited auditory perception or in language processing problems.

METHODS & PROCEDURE

Differences in linguistic abilities and differential linguistic profiles of 47 children with CI, 66 HoH children with moderate to severe hearing loss, and 127 children with SLI are compared, divided into two age cohorts. Standardized Dutch tests were administered. Factor analyses and cluster analyses were conducted to find homogeneous linguistic profiles of the children.

OUTCOMES & RESULTS

The children with CIs were outperformed by their HoH peers and peers with SLI on most linguistic abilities. Concerning the linguistic profiles, the largest group of children with CIs and HoH children shared similar profiles. The profiles observed for most of the children with SLI were different from those of their peers with hearing loss in both age cohorts.

CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS

Results suggest that the underlying nature of spoken language problems in most children with CIs manifests in limited auditory perception instead of language processing difficulties. However, there appears to be a subgroup of children with CIs whose linguistic profiles resemble those of children with SLI.

How Do Deaf Children With and Without Cochlear Implants Manage to Read Sentences: The Key Word Strategy

The aim of this study is to examine the mechanisms used by deaf children with and without cochlear implants (CIs) to read sentences and the linguistic bases (vocabulary and syntax) underlying those reading mechanisms. Previous studies have shown that deaf persons read sentences using the key word strategy (KWS), which consists of identifying some frequent content words and ignoring the function words. The present results show that deaf children, including those wearing CIs from an early age, do use the KWS. It is also shown that this tendency is related with a linguistic deficiency, especially with a poor ability to deal with function words. Furthermore, the age of implantation, and the degree of hearing loss for children without CIs, plays an important role in using the KWS. Some pedagogical consequences of this situation are considered.