Prelingually Deaf Children With Cochlear Implants Show Better Perception of Voice Cues and Speech in Competing Speech Than Postlingually Deaf Adults With Cochlear Implants.
Leanne Nagels, Etienne Gaudrain, Deborah Vickers and 2 others
PMID 38616318WHAT IT FOUND
Prelingually deaf children with cochlear implants outperformed postlingually deaf adults in perceiving voice cues and separating speech in competing speech.
Children used both pitch and vocal tract length cues, unlike adults who relied mainly on pitch. This suggests early implantation aids the brain in interpreting degraded signals.
Key findings
01Prelingually deaf CI children had smaller just-noticeable differences for fundamental frequency (5.92 st) and vocal tract length (4.10 st) compared to postlingually deaf CI adults (9.19 st and 7.19 st respectively).
02CI children weighted both fundamental frequency and vocal tract length cues for voice gender categorization, whereas postlingually deaf CI adults relied primarily on fundamental frequency.
03CI children benefited from target-masker voice differences in fundamental frequency and vocal tract length for speech in competing speech, similar to normal-hearing children, while many CI adults showed no such benefit.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The comparison to postlingually deaf adults was based on data from previous studies with different participant demographics (e.g., adults were older, around 60 years, and mostly unilaterally implanted, whereas children were mostly bilaterally implanted). The sample size of CI children was small (14 participants). The study used closed-set CRM sentences for children, whereas adult comparison studies often used open-set sentences, which may affect difficulty levels. Factors such as socioeconomic status, daily CI use, and specific cognitive abilities were not controlled for or measured.
Declared interests
Funded by the Medical Research Council and the University Medical Center Groningen. No other conflicts of interest declared.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that cochlear implants inherently transmit voice cues better for children than for adults. The observed advantage in children may be partly due to neuroplasticity from early exposure, bilateral implantation (which most children had but most adults did not), and the younger age of the children compared to the older adults in the control group.