Consonant articulation accuracy in paediatric cochlear implant recipients

Hearing loss is a significant risk factor for delays in the spoken language development of children. The purpose of this study was to examine the distribution of articulation errors for English consonants among children with cochlear implants (CIs) who utilise auditory-oral communication. Speech samples from 45 prelingually deafened paediatric CI users were obtained using a single-word picture elicitation task. Samples were audio recorded and transcribed in PRAAT; overall percentage consonant correct (PCC) and individual phoneme error patterns were examined. Results showed an average PCC of 76.49% and participants exhibited lower accuracy in producing several consonants that are late acquired by typically hearing and developing children. In comparison to previous studies of children with severe-to-profound hearing loss who did not use CIs, participants in this study were more accurate in their production of most fricatives and affricates. Surprisingly, some phonemes that are acquired early in typically developing populations and that have high visual salience, specifically the nasal bilabial stop, /m/, were produced with relatively lower accuracy than would be expected based on published research. In comparison to voiced and voiceless oral bilabial stops, /b/ and /p/, /m/ was subject to substantially more place of articulation errors.