The development of speech production following cochlear implantation

• Published in: Clinical linguistics & phonetics Vol. 15; no. 5; pp. 363 - 382
• Main Authors: Blamey, P., Barry, J., Bow, C., Sarant, J., Paatsch, L., Wales, R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Informa UK Ltd 2001; Taylor & Francis
• Subjects: Hearing impairment, cochlear prosthesis, spoken language, language acquisition; Linguistic effects of deficiencies; Linguistics; Pathology of language; Deafness; Follow up study; Pronunciation; Language pathology; Intelligibility; Conversation; Language acquisition; Child; Complexity
• ISSN: 0269-9206; 1464-5076
• DOI: 10.1080/02699200010017823

Conversational speech samples were analysed over a six-year period postoperatively for nine profoundly deaf children implanted with the Cochlear Limited 22-electrode cochlear implant between ages 2-5 years. Four years post-implant, at least 90% of all syllables produced by each child were intelligible, although only one of the children (who had suffered a progressive hearing loss) had over 10% intelligible syllables prior to implantation. Over the 6-year period, the mean number of intelligible words per utterance increased from 0.15 to 4.2 and the mean number of syllables (counting both intelligible and unintelligible syllables) increased from 1.7 to 5.2, indicating an increase in complexity as well as intelligibility. The speech samples were transcribed phonetically and percentage correct analyses were conducted on the transcripts. These analyses showed a steady improvement in the percentage of correctly produced monophthongs, diphthongs and consonants. There was a corresponding rise in the percentage of words that were produced without phonetic errors. Following six years of implantation, the speech acquisition process was incomplete, although there was no evidence to suggest a plateau in performance.