Assessing speech perception in children with cochlear implants using a modified hybrid visual habituation procedure

Area of Science:

• Audiology
• Speech-Language Pathology
• Developmental Psychology

Background:

• Cochlear implants (CIs) are crucial for hearing restoration in deaf children.
• Assessing speech perception in pre-schoolers with CIs presents unique challenges.
• Understanding perception of phonetic and prosodic features is vital for language development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate an adapted Hybrid Visual Habituation (HVH) procedure for assessing speech perception in young CI users.
• To determine if HVH can measure perception of specific phonetic (vowel height) and prosodic (lexical stress, intonation) features.
• To establish a reliable method for evaluating speech feature perception in pre-schoolers with CIs.

Main Methods:

• Nine pre-lingually deaf children (ages 3;4–5;5) using CIs participated.
• An adapted HVH procedure was employed to test speech feature perception.
• Bayesian linear regression analysis was used to interpret the results.

Main Results:

• Seven out of nine children demonstrated perception of at least one speech feature.
• The adapted HVH procedure successfully identified perception of phonetic and prosodic elements.
• Each tested speech feature was perceived by at least one child.

Conclusions:

• The adapted HVH procedure is a viable tool for assessing speech perception in pre-schoolers with CIs.
• This method effectively evaluates phonetic and prosodic aspects of speech.
• The findings support the use of adapted HVH for clinical and research applications in pediatric audiology.