Mandarin Tone Production in Prelingually Deaf Adults With Hearing Aids and Cochlear Implants

Area of Science:

• Speech acoustics
• Auditory perception
• Linguistics

Background:

• Mandarin tones are crucial for meaning.
• Deaf individuals face challenges in producing clear tones.
• Hearing devices (HAs, CIs) may influence speech production.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate Mandarin tone production in prelingually deaf adults using HAs or CIs.
• Analyze acoustic parameters (duration, F0 parabola) of tone production.
• Examine effects of rhyme complexity and hearing device type on tones.

Main Methods:

• 74 participants (CI, HA, NH controls) completed tone tasks.
• Acoustic analysis of 48 monosyllabic words with varying rhyme complexity.
• Linear mixed models analyzed duration and F0 parabola parameters.

Main Results:

• CI and HA users showed comparable F0 parabola patterns to NH individuals.
• Both CI and HA users produced tones with significantly longer durations.
• Nasal rhymes presented challenges, leading to longer durations for deaf individuals.

Conclusions:

• Prelingually deaf adults effectively use F0 parameters for tone differentiation, supplementing with longer durations.
• Rhyme complexity and hearing device type significantly affect Mandarin tone production.
• Findings offer insights for speech rehabilitation in hearing-impaired populations.