Tone perception in Mandarin-speaking children with cochlear implants

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the effects of implant age and duration of implantation on development of Mandarin tone perception in paediatric cochlear implant recipients. Design: Retrospective cross-sectional evaluation of tone perception, as assessed with the Mandarin Early Speech Perception test at 3, 6, 12, 24, 36 and 48 months after activation. Study sample: A total of 143 subjects, 60 girls and 83 boys unilaterally implanted at 1–4 years of age comprised the sample. All the subjects were implanted with devices from one of three manufacturers. Results: Regardless of implant age, approximately 80% of the subjects obtained overall tone discrimination scores significantly above chance by 4 years after implantation, and average discrimination accuracy increased from approximately 68% to 79%. Acoustically distinct tones 1 and 4 were discriminated and recognised more accurately, while less distinct tones 2 and 3 were discriminated and recognised less accurately. Large individual differences in performance were evident. Conclusions: Most Mandarin-speaking paediatric CI recipients discriminate tones above chance at 5 years of age with accuracy comparable to that of children with normal hearing at 2 years of age. Modest benefits of early implantation are evident.

Key Words:

• Tone perception
• cochlear implant
• Mandarin
• children

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Training Funds of Academic and Technical Leaders in Sichuan Province (The development of hearing-speech-language in normal children, Fund Number JH2014016) and Funds of Science & Technology Bureau of Sichuan Province (Early auditory development in children with hearing loss after early intervention, Fund Number 2014JY0237). This research was also supported in part by the House Clinic, Los Angeles, USA, and West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China. We wish to gratefully acknowledge Zhaoli Meng, Lei Jin and Qian Zhu for the data collection in the study.

Declaration of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.