Abstract
The paper provides an analysis of the development of the prosodic word in the speech of a Hebrew-speaking, hearing impaired child using a cochlear implant device. The data were collected during 38 sessions, from the age of 1;5 years (three months after the operation) till 3;4, using spontaneous speech and picture naming. The analysis is couched within the theoretical framework of Prosodic Phonology, and compared with that of normally hearing Hebrew-speaking children. The comparison reveals that the development of the prosodic word in the speech of the implanted child is within the normal range, in terms of both developmental path and age. There were, however, two phenomena in the speech of the implanted child that were not reported in the studies on normally hearing children. The implanted child's vocabulary included mono- and disyllabic words consisting of vowels only, and his vocalic inventory included long vowels. The clinical implications of our findings are discussed.