Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 6, 2026
Systematic Hearing Performance Evaluation Process for Adolescents with Cochlear Implantation at Early Ages
Published on: March 24, 2023
A comparative study of pitch recognition in children with cochlear implants and normal hearing peers across Mandarin
Yishun Gu1, Fuhai An1, Shengnan Ge2
1Jing Hengyi School of Education, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China.
Objective:
This study aims to systematically compare the pitch recognition abilities of Mandarin-speaking children with cochlear implants (CI) and their normal-hearing (NH) peers, examining performance variations across different pitch levels (high, normal, low) and Mandarin lexical tones (T1-T4).
Methods:
A comparative experiment was conducted involving 25 children with CI and 25 age-matched NH children. Using acoustic analysis, pitch recognition was assessed through a task where participants identified pitch levels in sentences representing the four Mandarin tones.
Results:
Children with CI demonstrated a dissociated pattern of pitch recognition. Their performance in recognizing high pitch was comparable to that of NH children. However, they exhibited significant deficits in recognizing both normal and low pitch. Furthermore, the type of Mandarin lexical tone did not significantly modulate pitch recognition accuracy in either group.
Conclusion:
The findings indicate a selective deficit in pitch recognition among children with CI, primarily affecting the normal and low pitch ranges. The results provide empirical evidence for developing targeted auditory rehabilitation strategies that address the specific pitch recognition challenges faced by pediatric CI users.
