title: Perception of speech features by French-speaking children with cochlear implants.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The present study investigates the perception of phonological features in French-speaking children with cochlear implants (CIs) compared with normal-hearing (NH) children matched for listening age.
  
  
  METHODS
  Scores for discrimination and identification of minimal pairs for all features defining consonants (e.g., place, voicing, manner, nasality) and vowels (e.g., frontness, nasality, aperture) were measured in each listener.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results indicated no differences in "categorical perception," specified as a similar difference between discrimination and identification between CI children and controls. However, CI children demonstrated a lower level of "categorical precision," that is, lesser accuracy in both feature identification and discrimination, than NH children, with the magnitude of the deficit depending on the feature.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  If sensitive periods of language development extend well beyond the moment of implantation, the consequences of hearing deprivation for the acquisition of categorical perception should be fairly important in comparison to categorical precision because categorical precision develops more slowly than categorical perception in NH children. These results do not support the idea that the sensitive period for development of categorical perception is restricted to the first 1-2 years of life. The sensitive period may be significantly longer. Differences in precision may reflect the acoustic limitations of the cochlear implant, such as coding for temporal fine structure and frequency resolution.
authors.affiliation: Aix-Marseille University, Marseille, France. Sophie.Bouton@univ-provence.fr
authors.forename: Sophie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bouton
authors.forename: Willy
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Serniclaes
authors.forename: Josiane
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bertoncini
authors.forename: Pascale
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Colé
mesh_terms: D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D003054:Cochlear Implants; D003423:Critical Period, Psychological; D003638:Deafness / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005260:Female; D005602:France; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D008297:Male; D016555:Matched-Pair Analysis; D010700:Phonetics; D012016:Reference Values; D013063:Speech Discrimination Tests / Q000379:methods; D013067:Speech Perception