Word characteristics and speech production accuracy in children with auditory brainstem implants: a longitudinal triple case report

Abstract

Auditory brainstem implants (ABI) in children in the first years of life is a recent innovation.Analyses of their speech and language development on the basis of spontaneous language samples are still largely lacking. The aim was to investigate the phonological complexity of the words children with ABI use in their spontaneous speech, and to compare their accuracy with that of children with cochlear implants (CI) and children with normal hearing (NH).Longitudinal recordings of spontaneous speech were collected of three children with ABI.Children with ABI target mainly words of low phonological complexity in their spontaneous speech, just as children with NH and children with CI do. The complexity of the words they attempt increases over time, but this development is less outspoken in comparison to children with CI and NH at the same hearing ages. The accuracy of the ABI children's word productions is situated in the lower ranges of the 95% confidence intervals of the NH and the CI groups, anddepending on the specific measureeven fall below the 95% border. The ABI intervention appears to be beneficial in the three cases studied, although their development is slow compared to children with CI and NH.

Speech production accuracy of children with auditory brainstem implants: A comparison with peers with cochlear implants and typical hearing using Levenshtein Distance

“…Moreover, even though their attempted words were less complex as compared to these two reference groups, the accuracy of their actual word productions was not higher at similar hearing ages (Faes & Gillis, 2020). Rather, their speech production accuracy also fell in the lower ranges or even below the 95% confidence intervals of children with NH and children with CI (Faes & Gillis, 2020).…”

“…The phonological complexity of children with ABI's word productions (as measured by i.a. the number of phonemes and syllables of words, the pMLU of the target words, see below for further elaboration) fell out of the 95% confidence intervals of children with CI and NH with similar hearing experience (Faes & Gillis, 2020). Moreover, even though their attempted words were less complex as compared to these two reference groups, the accuracy of their actual word productions was not higher at similar hearing ages (Faes & Gillis, 2020).…”

“…the number of phonemes and syllables of words, the pMLU of the target words, see below for further elaboration) fell out of the 95% confidence intervals of children with CI and NH with similar hearing experience (Faes & Gillis, 2020). Moreover, even though their attempted words were less complex as compared to these two reference groups, the accuracy of their actual word productions was not higher at similar hearing ages (Faes & Gillis, 2020). Rather, their speech production accuracy also fell in the lower ranges or even below the 95% confidence intervals of children with NH and children with CI (Faes & Gillis, 2020).…”

“…Their consonants showed a quite typical course of development: stops, nasals, and glides (for manner of articulation) and labials and coronals (for place of articulation) appeared first in their speech productions (Eisenberg et al, 2018;Faes & Gillis, 2021;Teagle et al, 2018). Despite these more general patterns, a substantial amount of individual variation was observed, even in children with ABI with similar (early) age at implantation and similar hearing thresholds after implantation (Eisenberg et al, 2018;Faes & Gillis, 2020, 2021Teagle et al, 2018). In addition, they expanded their phonological inventories considerably more slowly (especially for consonants) as compared to the reported pace of development of children with NH and CI in the literature (Faes & Gillis, 2021).…”

“…As to phonological development, the better performing children with ABI have been shown to use basic word patterns and language-ambient consonants and vowels with varying accuracy (Eisenberg et al, 2018;Faes & Gillis, 2020, 2021Teagle et al, 2018). Their consonants showed a quite typical course of development: stops, nasals, and glides (for manner of articulation) and labials and coronals (for place of articulation) appeared first in their speech productions (Eisenberg et al, 2018;Faes & Gillis, 2021;Teagle et al, 2018).…”