School-Age Children Adapt the Dynamics of Lexical Competition in Suboptimal Listening Conditions

The effects of overhearing on vocabulary learning in ethnic majority and minority preschool children

Research shows that infants and preschoolers can learn novel words equally well through addressed speech as through overhearing two adults. However, most of this research draws from samples of ethnic majority children. The current study compares word learning in preschoolers (M age = 5;6) with an ethnic minority and an ethnic majority background (N = 132). An experimenter of the majority group (representative for most teachers in Flemish education) told a story in three different interaction situations: Addressed Speech, Overhearing Classroom and Overhearing Two Adults. Results show that children of both ethnic groups learn novel words in Addressed Speech and in Overhearing Classroom equally well. However, minority children learned significantly fewer words in Overhearing Two Adults. This study suggests important differences in how ethnic majority and minority children learn through indirect speech in educational (monolingual) settings. In addition, the study scrutinizes the potential role of social identification in overhearing mechanisms.

Delayed Lexical Access and Cascading Effects on Spreading Semantic Activation During Spoken Word Recognition in Children With Hearing Aids and Cochlear Implants: Evidence From Eye-Tracking

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this study was to characterize the dynamics of real-time lexical access, including lexical competition among phonologically similar words, and spreading semantic activation in school-age children with hearing aids (HAs) and children with cochlear implants (CIs). We hypothesized that developing spoken language via degraded auditory input would lead children with HAs or CIs to adapt their approach to spoken word recognition, especially by slowing down lexical access.

DESIGN

Participants were children ages 9- to 12-years old with normal hearing (NH), HAs, or CIs. Participants completed a Visual World Paradigm task in which they heard a spoken word and selected the matching picture from four options. Competitor items were either phonologically similar, semantically similar, or unrelated to the target word. As the target word unfolded, children's fixations to the target word, cohort competitor, rhyme competitor, semantically related item, and unrelated item were recorded as indices of ongoing lexical access and spreading semantic activation.

RESULTS

Children with HAs and children with CIs showed slower fixations to the target, reduced fixations to the cohort competitor, and increased fixations to the rhyme competitor, relative to children with NH. This wait-and-see profile was more pronounced in the children with CIs than the children with HAs. Children with HAs and children with CIs also showed delayed fixations to the semantically related item, although this delay was attributable to their delay in activating words in general, not to a distinct semantic source.

CONCLUSIONS

Children with HAs and children with CIs showed qualitatively similar patterns of real-time spoken word recognition. Findings suggest that developing spoken language via degraded auditory input causes long-term cognitive adaptations to how listeners recognize spoken words, regardless of the type of hearing device used. Delayed lexical access directly led to delays in spreading semantic activation in children with HAs and CIs. This delay in semantic processing may impact these children's ability to understand connected speech in everyday life.

Cochlear Implants or Hearing Aids: Speech Perception, Language, and Executive Function Outcomes

OBJECTIVES

We aimed to determine whether children with severe hearing loss (HL) who use hearing aids (HAs) may experience added value in the perception of speech, language development, and executive function (EF) compared to children who are hard of hearing (HH) or children who are deaf and who use cochlear implants (CIs) and would benefit from CIs over HAs. The results contribute to the ongoing debate concerning CI criteria. We addressed the following research question to achieve this aim: Do children who are HH or deaf with CIs perform better than children with severe HL with HAs with respect to auditory speech perception, and receptive vocabulary and/or EF?

DESIGN

We compared two groups of children with severe HL, profound HL or deafness, with CIs or HAs, matched for gender, test age (range, 8 to 15 years), socioeconomic status, and nonverbal intelligence quotient. Forty-three children had CIs (pure-tone average at 2000 and 4000 Hz >85 dB HL), and 27 children had HAs (mean pure-tone average: 69 dB HL). We measured speech perception at the conversational level (65 dB SPL) and the soft speech perception level (45 dB SPL). We established receptive vocabulary using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-III-NL. We tested EF using the Delis Kaplan Executive Function System battery and the Dutch Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test. We employed the Mann-Whitney U test to compare data between the CI and HA groups. We used Chi-square goodness of fit tests to contrast the CI and HA group distributions with the norm data of children who are typically developing (TD). We harnessed Kendall's Tau-b to investigate relationships between the study variables.

RESULTS

Both groups of children, with CIs and Has, obtained ceiling scores for perception of speech on a conversational level. However, the HA group exhibited significantly lower perception on a soft speech level scores (68 %) than the CI group (87%). No difference was present between the receptive vocabulary distributions of the CI and HA groups. The median receptive vocabulary standard scores for both groups were well within the normal range (CI group: 93; HA group: 96). In addition, we did not find any difference in EF between the CI and HA groups. For planning and verbal memory, the distributions of observed scores for children with CIs were different from the expected distributions of children who are TD. In both groups, a large proportion of children obtained below-average scores for planning (CI: 44%; HA: 33%) and for long-term verbal memory (CI: 44%; HA: 35%). In the HA group, perception at a soft speech level was associated with receptive vocabulary and planning. In the CI group, we did not find any associations.

CONCLUSIONS

Both groups of children with severe and profound HL with HAs exhibit less favorable auditory perception on the soft speech level, but not at a conversational level, compared to children who are HH or deaf with CIs. Both groups, children with CIs and HAs, only exhibit more problems in planning and verbal memory than the norm groups of children who are TD. The results indicate that to obtain age-appropriate levels of receptive vocabulary and EF, the perception at the soft speech level is a necessary but not sufficient prerequisite.

The Role of Orthography and Phonology in Written Word Recognition: Evidence From Eye-Tracking in the Visual World Paradigm

PURPOSE

There is a long-standing debate about how written words are recognized. Central to this debate is the role of phonology. The objective of this study is to contribute to our collective understanding regarding the role of phonology in written word recognition.

METHOD

A total of 30 monolingual adults were tested using a novel written word version of the visual world paradigm (VWP). We compared activation of phonological anadromes (words that are matched for sounds but not letters, e.g., JAB-BADGE) and orthographic anadromes (words that are matched for letters but not sounds, e.g., LEG-GEL) to determine the relative role of phonology and orthography in familiar single-word reading.

RESULTS

We found that activation for phonological anadromes is earlier, more robust, and sustained longer than orthographic anadromes.

CONCLUSIONS

These results are most consistent with strong phonological theories of single-word reading that posit an early and robust role of phonology. This study has broad implications for larger debates regarding reading instruction.

Phonological Priming as a Lens for Phonological Organization in Children With Cochlear Implants

OBJECTIVES

To evaluate the subconscious knowledge of between-word phonological similarities in children with cochlear implants as compared with children with typical hearing.

DESIGN

Participants included 30 children with cochlear implants between the ages of five and seven who used primarily spoken English to communicate, 30 children matched for chronological age, and 30 children matched for vocabulary size. Participants completed an animacy judgment task in either a (a) neutral condition, (b) a phonological prime condition where the consonant and vowel onset of the pictured word was presented prior to the visual target's appearance, (c) an inhibition prime condition where a consonant and vowel onset not matching the pictured word was presented prior to the target's appearance. Reaction times were recorded.

RESULTS

Children with cochlear implants reacted differently and more slowly than children with typical hearing in both groups to the primes: children with typical hearing experienced a phonological facilitation effect in the phonological prime condition, whereas children with cochlear implants did not. Children with cochlear implants also had reaction times that, overall, were slower than children matched for chronological age but similar to children matched for vocabulary size.

CONCLUSIONS

The different experience of children with cochlear implants with phonological facilitation and inhibition effects may indicate children with cochlear implants have phonological organization strategies that are different from those of children with typical hearing.