Nasal Resonance Characteristics in Mandarin-Speaking Children With Cochlear Implants

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of cochlear implantation (CI) and age at implantation on speech nasal resonance in a group of prelingually deaf Chinese children.

This study examined 50 prelingually deaf children with CI and 50 age-matched children with normal hearing (NH). The children with CI were divided into two groups based on age at implantation: 29 children received implants at or before 4 years of age, and 21 children received them after the age of 4 years. The participants were asked to recite two Chinese phrases and three Chinese sentences containing oral, naso-oral, and nasal text. A Nasameter II (Model 6450, KayPentax) was used to obtain nasalance values for each stimulus.

For the oral text and Chinese phrase /baba/ stimuli, the CI group did not differ significantly from the NH group (p = .291 and p = .493, respectively). However, for the naso-oral text, nasal text, and the phrase /mama/, the CI group showed significantly lower nasalance scores than the NH group (p < .05). Among children with CI, those implanted at or before 4 years of age had significantly higher nasalance scores for nasal text stimuli than did those implanted after 4 years of age (p < .05).

The study demonstrates that hyponasality poses speech challenges for Mandarin-speaking children with CI, suggesting that persistent difficulties in nasal-oral balance after implantation warrant targeted intervention during speech therapy.