https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7665-050X
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Abstract
Objective
The study’s objective was to identify consonant and vowel confusions in cochlear implant (CI) users, using a nonsense syllable repetition test.
Design
In this cross-sectional study, participants repeated recorded mono- and bisyllabic nonsense words and real-word monosyllables in an open-set design.
Study sample
Twenty-eight Norwegian-speaking, well-performing adult CI users (13 unilateral and 15 bilateral), using implants from Cochlear, Med-El and Advanced Bionics, and a reference group of 20 listeners with normal hearing participated.
Results
For the CI users, consonants were confused more often than vowels (58% versus 71% correct). Voiced consonants were confused more often than unvoiced (54% versus 64% correct). Voiced stops were often repeated as unvoiced, whereas unvoiced stops were never repeated as voiced. The nasals were repeated correctly in one third of the cases and confused with other nasals in one third of the cases. The real-word monosyllable score was significantly higher than the nonsense syllable score (76% versus 63% correct).
Conclusions
The study revealed a general devoicing bias for the stops and a high confusion rate of nasals with other nasals, which suggests that the low-frequency coding in CIs is insufficient. Furthermore, the nonsense syllable test exposed more perception errors than the real word test.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the Department of Special Needs Education, University of Oslo, Norway, which provided funds to pay the salary for two phoneticians who transcribed the voice recordings.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Correction Statement
This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.