Song Recognition by Children and Adolescents With Cochlear Implants

Abstract

Current implant processors provide insufficient spectral detail for some aspects of music perception, but they do not preclude young implant users' enjoyment of music.

Pitch and Timing in the Songs of Deaf Children With Cochlear Implants

“…For one thing, they confirm child implant users' long-term memory for music, as indicated by their recall of several features of the songs, most notably their temporal form. Previous research has indicated that deaf children with implants can identify familiar recordings of popular songs from the original, vocal-plus-instrumental renditions or from the original instrumental portions (Vongpaisal et al, 2006). They can also identify the sound tracks of familiar television programs (Mitani et al, in press;Nakata et al, 2005).…”

“…Like adults, congenitally deaf children are unable to identify frequently heard melodies on the basis of pitch cues alone (Stordahl, 2002;Vongpaisal, Trehub, & Schellenberg, 2006), but they can identify familiar pop songs from the original recordings or from the original instrumental portions (Vongpaisal et al, 2006). Such children can also identify the musical soundtracks from their favorite television programs (Mitani et al, in press;Nakata et al, 2005).…”

“…They rate familiar music favorably, and they participate in a variety of musical activities including singing, dancing, and instrument training (Gfeller, Witt, Spencer, Stordahl, & Tomblin, 1998;Nakata et al, 2005;Vongpaisal et al, 2006). In principle, their positive ratings of music could stem from social desirability (Heyman & Legare, 2005) or peer influence, and their involvement in music could be attributed to parental pressure.…”

“…To enable us to differentiate between characteristic limitations in children's singing and limitations arising specifically from cochlear implant use, we included a small sample of hearing children in the same age range. On the basis of adult implant users' good rhythm discrimination (Gfeller, Woodworth, Robin, Witt, & Knutson, 1997) and poor pitch discrimination (Fujita & Ito, 1999;Vandali et al, 2006) and child implant users' poor perception of pitch relations (Nakata et al, 2005;Vongpaisal et al, 2006), we expected the songs of child implant users to have reasonable temporal patterning but poor pitch patterning.…”

A comparison of the speech recognition and pitch ranking abilities of children using a unilateral cochlear implant, bimodal stimulation or bilateral hearing aids

“…Research into the pitch perception abilities of child CI users has predominantly involved song recognition tasks and has consistently shown that CI users score significantly lower than their NH counterparts, particularly for songs devoid of lyrics [11,12,13]. This implies that recipients are more dependent upon rhythm and speech information, and are less able to utilise pitch information.…”