15th ANNUAL EARLY HEARING DETECTION & INTERVENTION MEETING
March 13-15, 2016 • San Diego, CA
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Non-Word Repetition Performance of Children with Cochlear Implants: Effects of Early Acoustic Hearing
The ability to imitate nonwords requires many of the same processes (auditory, linguistic, cognitive and speech-motor) that are involved in learning new words – and is not confounded by language ability. For deaf children, ‘early acoustic hearing’ may be important for perceiving speech prosody and eventually learning new words. Here, we examine the effects of ‘early acoustic hearing’ on performance on nonword imitations for deaf children with cochlear implants (CIs). ‘Early acoustic hearing’ is defined by a combination of audiometric thresholds of non-implanted ears (unaided and aided; pre- and/or post-surgery), age at 1st HA, and duration of hearing-aid (HA) use.
Data from 29 of 117 children with CIs and 14 of 42 children with normal hearing (NH) are presented here. Children with CIs wear two devices (2 CIs, or a CI and a HA), received their first (or only) CI before the age of 3 years, and were 5 – 9 years old at the time of the tests. The Children’s Nonword Repetition test was used. For each of 20 nonwords, ranging from 2-5 syllables, the child was instructed to repeat what they heard. The imitations were recorded, transcribed and analyzed for phonetic and suprasegmental accuracy. Several speech segmental and suprasegmental listening tests were also administered. The relationship between nonword imitation performance and i) scores on the listening tests and ii) audiological variables were analyzed.
Overall, children with NH outperformed children with CIs, and exhibited less variability. Preliminary results show that age at 1st HA and duration of HA use are correlated with nonword imitation scores. Also, better suprasegmental listening scores are correlated with better nonword imitation scores. These preliminary results suggest that early acoustic hearing and suprasegmental listening abilities support performance on nonword imitations, and may benefit vocabulary development.
Funding acknowledgment: NIH-R01 DC012778
- Identify differences in non-word repetition performance in children with cochlear implants and children with normal hearing
- Determine the potential impacts of early acoustic experience on the phonological development of children with cochlear implants
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Caroline Lartz
(Primary Presenter), Washington University in St. Louis, lartzc@wustl.edu;
I am from Bloomington, Illinois and received my undergraduate degree at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. I am currently a fourth year doctoral student in the AuD program at Washington University in St. Louis and am completing my externship at Special School District in St. Louis. I am passionate about the pediatric population and especially enjoy educational audiology. My clinical and research interests are speech and language development, pediatric cochlear implants and amplification, and early intervention.
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Receives Grants,Other financial benefit for Employment from NIH, Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine Department of Otolaryngology.
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No relevant nonfinancial relationship exist.
Rosalie Uchanski
(Author), Washington University in St. Louis, Uchanskir@wustl.edu;
Professor and researcher at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine
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Lisa Davidson
(Author), Washington University in St. Louis, Davidsonl@wustl.edu;
Professor and researcher at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine Department of Otolaryngology
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