Speech rate, rate-matching, and intelligibility in early-implanted cochlear implant users

Area of Science:

• Speech-language pathology
• Audiology
• Linguistics

Background:

• Speech intelligibility is crucial for social functioning in deaf individuals with cochlear implants.
• Speech rate-matching, or adapting speech rate to an interlocutor, is another key communicative competence.
• This study investigates speech rate-matching and its link to intelligibility in cochlear implant (CI) users.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine speech rate-matching abilities in prelingually deaf CI users compared to typically hearing peers.
• To determine the relationship between speech rate-matching and speech intelligibility in CI users.
• To track developmental changes in rate-matching and intelligibility in CI users.

Main Methods:

• 91 prelingually deaf CI users and 93 hearing peers (ages 3-27) repeated spoken sentences.
• Listeners transcribed repeated sentences to calculate speech intelligibility.
• Speech rates were measured and normalized relative to examiner speech rates for rate-matching analysis.

Main Results:

• CI users exhibited slower speech rates, less accurate rate-matching, and lower intelligibility than hearing peers.
• Faster speech rates and better rate-matching correlated with higher intelligibility in CI users.
• Both rate-matching and intelligibility improved with age, but CI users remained delayed by approximately one year.

Conclusions:

• Speech rate-matching is a significant factor in speech intelligibility for CI users.
• Targeted interventions for speech rate-matching are recommended in speech-language therapy for CI users.
• Early intervention may help mitigate developmental delays in communicative competence for deaf children with CIs.