An investigation of weak syllable processing in deaf children with cochlear implants

In this study the influence of prosodic foot structure on the processing of weak syllables in children with cochlear implants (CI) was investigated. A battery of tests investigating processing of weak syllables in single and multi-word utterances was carried out on four groups of children: 15 children with CI developing spoken language as expected (Main CI); five children with CI reported to have additional speech and language problems; 15 age matched; and 15 language matched (LM) children with normal hearing (NH). Children in the main CI and, to a lesser extent, the LM groups processed footed weak syllables preferably over unfooted weak syllables (particularly as memory load increased). Thus, these children with CI appear to possess a similar Prosodic Hierarchy (PH) to their LM peers with NH, and possibly due to the impact of delayed and constrained exposure to audition on the development of linguistic processing and short-term memory, are influenced by its foot structure in the processing of weak syllables.