Phonetic inventory development in young cochlear implant users 6 years postoperation.
Increases in the phonetic inventories of a group of 9 children in the fifth and sixth years of experience with a cochlear implant are reported, extending a previous 4-year study (T. A. Serry & P. J. Blamey, 1999). Thirty-six out of 44 phones in Australian English reached the criterion of 50% correct in the conversational samples of 5 or more children. This level of performance corresponds to intelligible, but not completely natural, speech. The rate of improvement in the sixth year was slow, indicating a probable plateau in performance. The 8 phones that did not attain the 50% criterion in 5 or more children were /see text/. Potential reasons for the slow development or nondevelopment of these phones include very low frequency of occurrence for /see text/ and the perceptual and articulatory characteristics of /see text/. /see text/ is also subject to a high degree of allophonic variation in the fluent speech of normally hearing speakers, probably accounting for much of the variability in its articulation in the conversational samples.
Blamey
P J
PJ
Department of Otolaryngology, University of Melbourne, East Melbourne, Australia. p.blamey@medoto.unimelb.edu.au
Barry
J G
JG
Jacq
P
P
D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D019929:Cochlear Implantation; D003638:Deafness / Q000601:surgery*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors