Consonant articulation accuracy in paediatric cochlear implant recipients.
Mackenzie Lighterink, Ferenc Bunta, René H Gifford and 1 others
PMID 39698736WHAT IT FOUND
Children with cochlear implants show variable speech accuracy.
While most sounds improved over historical norms, the nasal /m/ was unexpectedly inaccurate, often substituted with an alveolar /n/. This specific error pattern suggests clinicians should not assume all early-acquired sounds are mastered in this population.
Key findings
01The nasal bilabial stop /m/ was the seventh least accurate consonant, with 60.92% of its errors involving a change in place of articulation, primarily to alveolar /n/.
02Fricative and affricate accuracy generally exceeded historical data for non-implanted children, but six of eight fricatives remained in the bottom half of accuracy rankings, with /θ/ and /z/ among the least accurate.
03Mean percentage consonants correct was 76.49%, but accuracy varied by task structure, with participants completing fewer repetitions showing higher mean accuracy (84.99%) than those completing three repetitions (74.36%).
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study was cross-sectional, analyzing baseline data from a larger intervention trial, so it does not track developmental trajectories over time. Stimuli were limited to 27 nouns, which did not sample all phonemes in all word positions (e.g., /m/ only appeared in 'thermometer' and 'vacuum', neither word-initial). The specific words used for /m/ are complex and less common in young children's vocabulary, which may have influenced error rates. Participants used only one implant processor during testing, which may not reflect everyday listening conditions.
Declared interests
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the high accuracy of /w/ (94.24%) as evidence that all bilabial sounds are easy for children with cochlear implants. The nasal /m/ was unexpectedly inaccurate, often substituted for /n/, indicating that visual salience alone does not guarantee correct production for all bilabial phonemes.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →