Processing of Plural Marking in Nouns by German-Speaking Children With Normal Hearing and Children With Cochlear Implants: An Eye-Tracking Study

Bénédicte Grandon ^1,2, Marcel Schlechtweg ³, Esther Ruigendijk ¹

⁰Institute of Dutch Studies and Cluster of Excellence "Hearing4All", Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Germany.

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research : Jslhr +

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February 26, 2024

View abstract on PubMed

Summary

Children with cochlear implants (CIs) show similar plural marking comprehension as typically hearing peers, with challenges in specific plural forms. Early implantation and linguistic material type benefit acquisition.

Area Of Science

Linguistics
Audiology
Developmental Psychology

Background

Understanding plural marking is crucial for language development.
Cochlear implants (CIs) may affect auditory processing and language acquisition.
Research is needed to explore plural processing in children with CIs.

Purpose Of The Study

To investigate how children with CIs process and understand different types of plural marking.
To examine the influence of salience and CI signal quality on plural processing.
To determine links between plural processing and individual factors like age and vocabulary.

Main Methods

An eye-tracking study involving 16 children with CIs and 30 children with normal hearing (NH).
Participants identified pictures corresponding to singular or plural nouns.
Accuracy, reaction time, and gaze fixation were analyzed using mixed-effect models.

Main Results

Children with CIs and NH groups showed similar accuracy and processing patterns for plurals.
Difficulties were noted with stem-vowel changes, while suffixes were easier.
Processing abilities improved with age (5-11 years) and correlated with lexical development.

Conclusions

Plural processing in children with CIs is qualitatively similar to NH peers, suggesting early implantation is beneficial.
The type of linguistic material (phonetic, phonological, morphological) impacts plural processing more than segmental salience.
Future research should consider the form of linguistic material in higher-level processing studies.