[Early auditory processing of speech in prelingually-deafened children with cochlear implants based on event-related...

Area of Science:

• Auditory Neuroscience
• Speech Perception
• Neurophysiology

Background:

• Early auditory discrimination is crucial for speech development.
• Cochlear implants (CI) aim to restore hearing in deafened individuals.
• Understanding auditory processing in CI users is vital for optimizing rehabilitation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate early auditory discrimination of speech features in prelingually deafened children with CI.
• To compare auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) between CI users and normal hearing (NH) children.
• To investigate the relationship between CI use duration and auditory performance.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a multi-deviant oddball paradigm with monosyllabic stimuli.
• Recorded auditory event-related potentials (ERPs), including mismatch negativities (MMNs) and P3a responses.
• Analyzed ERPs, theta oscillation synchronization, and auditory performance scores (CAP, SIR, MAIS).

Main Results:

• NH children exhibited robust MMNs to vowel, consonant, and lexical tone contrasts.
• CI children showed positive mismatch responses (pMMRs) and P3a to vowel and consonant contrasts, but not lexical tones.
• CI children demonstrated longer pMMR/P3a latencies and weaker theta synchronization; longer CI use correlated with better auditory performance.

Conclusions:

• Prelingually deafened CI children demonstrate early-stage processing of vowels and consonants.
• Lexical tone processing remains immature in CI users compared to NH peers.
• ERPs serve as objective indicators of auditory speech function maturity; long-term CI use is beneficial.