Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2012
Publication Title
Journal of Communication Disorders
First Page
355
Last Page
366
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2012.05.003
Abstract
Objectives—The purpose of the current study was to examine the relation between speech intelligibility and prosody production in children who use cochlear implants. Methods—The Beginner's Intelligibility Test (BIT) and Prosodic Utterance Production (PUP) task were administered to 15 children who use cochlear implants and 10 children with normal hearing. Adult listeners with normal hearing judged the intelligibility of the words in the BIT sentences, identified the PUP sentences as one of four grammatical or emotional moods (i.e., declarative, interrogative, happy, or sad), and rated the PUP sentences according to how well they thought the child conveyed the designated mood. Results—Percent correct scores were higher for intelligibility than for prosody and higher for children with normal hearing than for children with cochlear implants. Declarative sentences were most readily identified and received the highest ratings by adult listeners; interrogative sentences were least readily identified and received the lowest ratings. Correlations between intelligibility and all mood identification and rating scores except declarative were not significant. Discussion—The findings suggest that the development of speech intelligibility progresses ahead of prosody in both children with cochlear implants and children with normal hearing; however, children with normal hearing still perform better than children with cochlear implants on measures of intelligibility and prosody even after accounting for hearing age. Problems with interrogative intonation may be related to more general restrictions on rising intonation, and the
Rights
This is a post-print version of an article originally published in Journal of Communication Disorders, 2012, Volume 45, Issue 5.
The version of record is available through: Elsevier. All rights reserved.
Recommended Citation
Chin, S. B., Bergeson, T. R., & Phan, J. (2012). Speech intelligibility and prosody production in children with cochlear implants, Journal of Communication Disorders, 45, 355-366.
