Comprehension of clitic pronouns by children with cochlear implants: the role of sentence stress

Abstract

Objectives

This study investigates the role of sentence stress on the comprehension of sentences with clitic pronouns (unstressed morphemes and a typical feature of Romance languages) by children with cochlear implants (CIs).

Methods

Thirteen children (seven girls) with CIs and 15 children (seven girls) with NH between eight and 12 years who are monolingual speakers of Brazilian Portuguese participated on a computerized sentence comprehension task that involved manipulation of stress placement of possible antecedent words to clitic pronouns.

Results

Children with CIs were significantly less accurate than children with NH in comprehending sentences with clitics, regardless of sentence stress. For children with NH, stress on the correct antecedent significantly increased sentence comprehension accuracy. For children with CI, there was no significant effect of sentence stress on selecting the correct antecedent for clitic pronouns.

Discussion

Comprehension of sentences with clitic pronouns is challenging for children with CIs and this challenge holds cross-linguistically. Furthermore, children with CIs do not use prosodic information to support comprehension of sentences with clitics similarly to NH children.

Conclusion

Language-specific syntactic, morphosyntactic, and prosodic contrasts affecting sentence comprehension need to be assessed in children with CIs to plan an effective intervention.

Keywords:

• Cochlear Implants
• Sentence Comprehension
• Clitics
• Children
• Prosody
• Sentence Stress
• Morphology
• Syntax

Acknowledgments

We thank the children who participated and their families for contributing to research on language processing in children with cochlear implants.

Disclaimer statements

Contributors: None.

Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Conflict of interests: None.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Talita Fortunato-Tavares

Talita Fortunato-Tavares is an Assistant Professor with the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences at Lehman College and doctoral faculty of The Graduate School and

University Center’s Ph.D. Program in Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences, City University of New York. Dr. Fortunato-Tavares has collaborated with researchers from South America, United States and Europe. Her research interests include language development and disorders in children with cochlear implants, specific language impairment, fluency disorders, autism, and Down syndrome. More specifically, Dr. Fortunato-Tavares’ research focuses on the interchange among linguistic, auditory, suprasegmental, and cognitive factors on sentence processing.

Miya Wilson

Miya Wilson is a Speech-Language Pathology graduate student at the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences at Lehman College pursuing her Bilingual Extension Certificate in Japanese-English and Early Intervention Certification. She is serving as the Vice President for Finance on the National Student Speech Language Hearing Association (NSSLHA) Executive Council from 2020-2022. She spearheads the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Action (IDEA) Workgroup to better recognize student intersectional diversity at US colleges and universities and to increase opportunities to educate students about cultural competence, humility.

John Orazem

John Orazem is an adjunct professor with the Department of Health Sciences and serves as a statistical consultant within the School of Health Sciences, Human Services and Nursing at Lehman College, City University of New York. He received an MS and PhD in Biostatistics at Columbia University, and has worked for 30 years as a statistical scientist in the pharmaceutical industry and at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He has extensive experience in drug development in diverse therapeutic areas, including neurology, central nervous system, cardiology, urology, oncology, hematology, tropical diseases, and immune system disorders. He also contributed to the design and analysis of non-interventional studies, investigations of medical record databases, and quantitative risk-benefit assessment of therapeutic candidates. Since joining Lehman College in Fall 2019, his focus has been on teaching applied statistics and analyzing complex secondary data sources (e.g. NHANES) within the public health and exercise science domains.