Some Neuromyths and Challenging Questions about Cochlear Implants

Predictive language processing: integrating comprehension and production, and what atypical populations can tell us

“…Interestingly, a study by Holt et al (2021) with the visual world paradigm did not find any group difference between NH children and CI users, who exhibited similar timing of lexical access and speech processing in both constraining and not-constraining conditions. This result indicates that there might be a great variability in individual outcomes after early implantation, both in terms of linguistic abilities and neural adaptation ( Hunter and Pisoni, 2021 ). Indeed, for children with reduced difficulty in identifying words, building and committing to predictions might be as convenient as for their NH peers.…”

“…CIs are neural prostheses that are commonly used to treat severe and profound sensorineural deafness, enabling sound perception even in presence of damages or congenital malfunctioning of the cochlea ( Macherey and Carlyon, 2014 ). CIs support speech perception in deaf people and play a crucial role in the development of spoken language skills in deaf children, particularly if they are implanted before the age of three ( Hunter and Pisoni, 2021 ). However, while in many cases CIs provide sufficient information for speech comprehension, the auditory input conveyed is qualitatively degraded compared to the natural input of a healthy cochlea (for an in-depth discussion of the acoustic features of the CI input, see Hunter and Pisoni, 2021 ).…”

“…CIs support speech perception in deaf people and play a crucial role in the development of spoken language skills in deaf children, particularly if they are implanted before the age of three ( Hunter and Pisoni, 2021 ). However, while in many cases CIs provide sufficient information for speech comprehension, the auditory input conveyed is qualitatively degraded compared to the natural input of a healthy cochlea (for an in-depth discussion of the acoustic features of the CI input, see Hunter and Pisoni, 2021 ). In this section, we will review studies comparing predictive processes in CI users and normal hearing (NH) listeners, to elucidate the role of the auditory input in prediction.…”

“…Postlingually deaf CI users have acquired language with a normal auditory input and later adapted to the CI input after experiencing hearing loss. On the other hand, prelingually deaf CI users, who represent the majority of participants in studies with children, have developed language abilities solely on the basis of the CI input, potentially leading to differences in linguistic and cognitive development compared to NH peers (see, for example, Hunter and Pisoni, 2021 ). Thus, the features of the specific sample tested must not be overlooked.…”

“…An important consideration when interpreting findings from prelingually deaf CI users is that early exposure to the CI input might lead to significant differences in linguistic development ( Hunter and Pisoni, 2021 ). For example, individual vocabulary measures seem to partly explain group differences in predictive processes, suggesting that children with CI with better linguistic knowledge predict more similarly to their NH peers ( Blomquist et al, 2021 ).…”