Melodic Contour Training and Its Effect on Speech in Noise, Consonant Discrimination, and Prosody Perception for Cochlear Implant Recipients.
Cochlear implant (CI) recipients generally have good perception of speech in quiet environments but difficulty perceiving speech in noisy conditions, reduced sensitivity to speech prosody, and difficulty appreciating music. Auditory training has been proposed as a method of improving speech perception for CI recipients, and recent efforts have focussed on the potential benefits of music-based training. This study evaluated two melodic contour training programs and their relative efficacy as measured on a number of speech perception tasks. These melodic contours were simple 5-note sequences formed into 9 contour patterns, such as "rising" or "rising-falling." One training program controlled difficulty by manipulating interval sizes, the other by note durations. Sixteen adult CI recipients (aged 26-86 years) and twelve normal hearing (NH) adult listeners (aged 21-42 years) were tested on a speech perception battery at baseline and then after 6 weeks of melodic contour training. Results indicated that there were some benefits for speech perception tasks for CI recipients after melodic contour training. Specifically, consonant perception in quiet and question/statement prosody was improved. In comparison, NH listeners performed at ceiling for these tasks. There was no significant difference between the posttraining results for either training program, suggesting that both conferred benefits for training CI recipients to better perceive speech.
Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia ; HEARing Cooperative Research Centre, Melbourne, VIC 3053, Australia.
Chi Yhun
CY
Lo
Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia ; HEARing Cooperative Research Centre, Melbourne, VIC 3053, Australia ; ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and Its Disorders, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia.
Catherine M
CM
McMahon
SCIC Cochlear Implant Program-An RIDBC Service, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia.
Valerie
V
Looi
ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and Its Disorders, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia ; Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia.
William F
WF
Thompson
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D019929:Cochlear Implantation; D003054:Cochlear Implants; D003638:Deafness / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000601:surgery; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009622:Noise; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology