Mandarin Chinese speech recognition by pediatric cochlear implant users.

Area of Science:

• Audiology
• Speech-Language Pathology
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Pediatric cochlear implant (CI) speech studies often use simple tasks due to testing difficulties.
• Limited research exists on Mandarin-speaking pediatric CI users' perception of complex speech materials (e.g., multi-talker words/sentences).
• Complex speech tests necessitate older pediatric CI users with varied hearing loss etiologies and CI experience.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how pediatric CI patient demographics influence speech recognition performance.
• To assess speech recognition with difficult test materials in Mandarin-speaking pediatric CI users.
• To compare performance between children with congenital deafness and those with prior acoustic hearing experience.

Main Methods:

• Open-set recognition of multi-talker Mandarin Chinese disyllables and sentences was measured in 37 pediatric CI users.
• Subjects were grouped by deafness etiology and prior acoustic hearing experience (Group 1: congenital; Group 2: non-congenital).
• Multiple linear regression analyzed demographic influences (age at implantation/testing) within each group.

Main Results:

• Overall pediatric CI performance was good: Group 1 (congenital) achieved 82.3% disyllables, 82.8% sentences; Group 2 (acoustic experience) achieved 76.6% disyllables, 84.4% sentences.
• In Group 1, age at implantation predicted disyllable recognition; both ages predicted sentence recognition.
• In Group 2, neither age predicted recognition; performance was better with female than male talkers.

Conclusions:

• Early implantation offers a significant advantage for profoundly deaf children, aligning with prior research.
• Open-set recognition tasks are suitable for evaluating speech performance in older pediatric CI users.
• Performance differences between groups may stem from adaptation to electric stimulation versus prior acoustic experience.