Typical acquisition by atypical children: Initial consonant cluster acquisition by Israeli Hebrew-acquiring children with cochlear implants

Abstract

This paper studies the developmental stages of word initial consonant clusters (CCs) in the speech of six monolingual Israeli Hebrew (IH) acquiring hearing impaired children using cochlear implant (CI). Focusing on the patterns of cluster reduction, this study compares the CI children with typically-developing hearing children. All the CI children, three boys and three girls with age ranged from 1;5-2;8 years at their first recording session, were with pre-lingual hearing impairment with bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. Productions of word initial CCs were elicited in an isolated-word picture-naming task combined with spontaneously produced words. Data collection started 2-4 months after implantation and continued until the correct production of word initial biconsonantal clusters. Results reveal that both the developmental stages and reduction patterns of word initial CCs of the CI children are very similar to typically-developing IH acquiring children, thus supporting earlier studies which show that children with CIs follow the same stages of acquisition as hearing children.

The emergence of productive speech and language in Spanish-learning paediatric cochlear implant users

“…As noted above, various studies have observed that CI users develop typical prosodic representations (e.g., Chin, 2006;Adi-Bensaid & Ben-David, 2010). As noted above, various studies have observed that CI users develop typical prosodic representations (e.g., Chin, 2006;Adi-Bensaid & Ben-David, 2010).…”

“…As opposed to the babbling-to-words transition, data from the one-word period seem to confirm such a contrast. As noted above, various studies have observed that CI users develop typical prosodic representations (e.g., Chin, 2006;Adi-Bensaid & Ben-David, 2010). Indirect evidence of inconsistency has been recently observed in English-learning children (Warner-Czyz & Davis, 2008 ;Ertmer & Goffman, 2011 ;Warner-Czyz et al, 2011).…”

“…However, it remains unclear up to what point the development of productive speech and language is typical in children implanted at an early age. Some indications of typical, though possibly slow, development are : a typical order of phoneme acquisition (Serry & Blamey, 1999 ;Barry, Blamey & Fletcher, 2006;Moreno-Torres & Torres, 2008); and typical error patterns in the production of consonant clusters (Kim & Chin, 2008 ;Adi-Bensaid & Ben-David, 2010). Furthermore, different researchers have found evidence of either atypical or typical development.…”

“…Some indications that development might be atypical are : early syllables which do not conform to the presumably universal consonant-vowel structure (Adi-Bensaid & Tubul-Lavy, 2009 ; see also Ertmer & Mellon, 2001;Gillis, Schauwers & Govaerts, 2002) ; segmental inaccuracy in the one-word period (Warner-Czyz & Davis, 2008 ;Warner-Czyz, Davis & MacNeilage, 2010 ;Ertmer & Goffman, 2011) ; and morphophonological errors early in grammatical development (e.g., Szagun, 2004 ;Moreno-Torres & Torres, 2008). Some indications of typical, though possibly slow, development are : a typical order of phoneme acquisition (Serry & Blamey, 1999 ;Barry, Blamey & Fletcher, 2006;Moreno-Torres & Torres, 2008); and typical error patterns in the production of consonant clusters (Kim & Chin, 2008 ;Adi-Bensaid & Ben-David, 2010).…”

Segmental and suprasegmental properties in nonword repetition – An explorative study of the associations with nonword decoding in children with normal hearing and children with bilateral cochlear implants

“…An additional aspect to consider is the production and repetition of consonant clusters. Here, children with CI have been reported to have similar developmental stages and reduction patterns as NH children for initial consonant cluster acquisition in picture naming and spontaneous speech (Adi-Bensaid & Ben-David, 2010). In the present study, besides segmental aspects, two prosodic characteristics of NWR will be investigated: stress pattern and syllable number.…”