Perception of Child-Directed Versus Adult-Directed Emotional Speech in Pediatric Cochlear Implant Users.
Karen Chan Barrett, Monita Chatterjee, Meredith T Caldwell and 4 others
PMID 32149924WHAT IT FOUND
Children with cochlear implants recognized emotions better in exaggerated child-directed speech than in normal adult-directed speech.
For adult-directed speech, longer implant experience predicted better recognition, while nonverbal IQ predicted success with child-directed speech.
Key findings
01Emotion recognition scores were significantly higher for child-directed speech compared to adult-directed speech.
02Years of experience using a cochlear implant significantly predicted emotion recognition performance in the adult-directed speech condition.
03Nonverbal IQ significantly predicted emotion recognition performance in the child-directed speech condition.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study included a wide age range (7-19 years), which may introduce developmental variability. Only two talkers were used for each speech condition, limiting generalizability to other voices. The cross-sectional design cannot establish causality between implant experience and emotion recognition skills.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The study was supported by funding from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD).
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that early implantation alone guarantees better emotion recognition in adult-directed speech. The study found that years of experience with the device, rather than age of implantation, was the significant predictor for the harder adult-directed task.