Children's Consonant Inventories After Extended Cochlear Implant Use

Abstract

Qualitative descriptions of the consonant inventories of 12 children who have used cochlear implants for at least 5 years are provided, together with description of sound correspondences between children's systems and the ambient language (English). Productions of English words were elicited in a picture-naming task, and a consonant inventory for each child was determined. Results showed that the consonant inventories of children who use cochlear implants are not simply subsets of the inventory of the ambient language, but rather unique sets of segments that may include consonants not in the ambient inventory. Comparison of the inventories of oral communication users and total communication users revealed qualitative differences between the 2 groups, based on the presence or absence of both English and non-English sound segments. Inventories of oral communication users tended to contain more English segments (e.g., alveolar fricatives, velar stops, velar nasals) than did the inventories of total communication users. Conversely, specific non-English segments, such as uvular stops, tended to occur in the inventories of total communication users more than in inventories of oral communication users. Therefore, a complete understanding of the phonological systems of children who use cochlear implants depends on full accounts of their segment inventories. Such understanding may affect decisions regarding habilitation procedures, insofar as successful acquisition of a linguistic system involves not only the inclusion of all ambient sound segments, but also the exclusion of all nonambient ones.

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

“…However, /s/ was not produced with comparable accuracy even after 72 months of implant use (Blamey et al 2001). Chin (2003) found, in a cohort of children who had at least 5 years of implant experience, that /ʃ/ was produced accurately at least 75% of the time, but /s/ was not. Thus, when comparing the duration of the CI users' experience to the age of the children with NH (cf.…”

Initial Stop Voicing in Bilingual Children With Cochlear Implants and Their Typically Developing Peers With Normal Hearing

“…Ertmer, 2007;Miyamoto, Kirk, Svirsky, & Sehgal, 1999). Even when controlling for some of these factors, CI users may still display differences in phonological acquisition compared with typically developing peers with NH (Blamey et al, 2001;Chin, 2003;Serry & Blamey, 1999).…”

“…Blamey, Barry, & Jacq, 2001;Chin, 2003;Ertmer & Goffman, 2011;Flipsen, 2011;Flipsen & Parker, 2008;Ingram, McCartney, & Bunta, 2001;Serry & Blamey, 1999). This is not surprising considering that children with CIs have hearing loss before their implant is activated and because the CI signal differs qualitatively from the sound sensation individuals with NH experience.…”

“…Hearing loss in children could delay phonological development due to limited access to the speech signal and self-hearing (Blamey et al, 2001;Chin, 2003;Serry & Blamey, 1999). Factors known to influence the speech pattern of a child with a CI include age of implantation, duration of device use, the communication mode used after implantation (oral vs. total language), and others (cf.…”

“…In terms of timing of acquisition, studies show that /t/, /k/, and /g/ are problematic for CI users and may still be undergoing development 5-6 years postimplantation (Blamey et al, 2001;Chin, 2003;Serry & Blamey, 1999). These sound segments are often substituted with other sounds, English and non-English alike, by monolingual English-speaking CI users (Chin, 2003). Bharadwaj and Graves (2008) analyzed the VOT durations of /t/ and /d/ produced by 10 monolingual prelingually deaf English CI users between the ages of 7 and 16 years.…”