Intelligibility of conversational speech produced by children with cochlear implants

The intelligibility of conversational speech produced by six children fitted with cochlear implants before age 3 years was measured longitudinally. Samples were obtained every 3 months during periods of 12-21 months. Intelligibility was measured using both an utterance-by-utterance approach and an approach to the sample as a whole. Statistically significant differences were observed between the two approaches, but the differences were all within the realm of measurement error. Findings indicated that intelligible speech emerges quite rapidly in these children. Conversational intelligibility appears to be superior to that reported in the literature for similar children who use hearing aids but not necessarily as good as in children with normal hearing. Both intelligibility measures were significantly correlated with chronological age, hearing age, and amount of implant use, but were most strongly correlated with chronological age.

The reader will be able to (1) describe some of the issues involved in measuring speech intelligibility in children with cochlear implants and (2) describe the pattern of outcomes for the intelligibility of speech produced by children receiving cochlear implants before age 3 years.