Mao Y T, Chen Z M, Xu L
Department of Radiology, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha 410008, China; School of Rehabilitation and Communication Sciences, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701, USA.
Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Language Disorder Center, the First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University, Guangzhou 510630, China.
Zhonghua Er Bi Yan Hou Tou Jing Wai Ke Za Zhi. 2017 Aug 7;52(8):573-579. doi: 10.3760/cma.j.issn.1673-0860.2017.08.003.
The present study was carried out to explore the tone production ability of the Mandarin-speaking children with cochlear implants (CI) by using an artificial neural network model and to examine the potential contributing factors underlining their tone production performance. The results of this study might provide useful guidelines for post-operative rehabilitation processes of pediatric CI users. Two hundred and seventy-eight prelingually deafened children who received unilateral CI participated in this study. As controls, 170 similarly-aged children with normal hearing (NH) were recruited. A total of 36 Chinese monosyllabic words were selected as the tone production targets. Vocal production samples were recorded and the fundamental frequency (F0) contour of each syllable was extracted using an auto-correlation algorithm followed by manual correction. An artificial neural network was created in MATLAB to classify the tone production. The relationships between tone production and several demographic factors were evaluated. Pediatric CI users produced Mandarin tones much less accurately than did the NH children (58.8% vs. 91.5% correct). Tremendous variability in tone production performance existed among the CI children. Tones 2 and 3 were produced less accurately than tones 1 and 4 for both groups. For the CI group, all tones when in error tended to be judged as tone 1. The tone production accuracy was negatively correlated with age at implantation and positively correlated with CI use duration with correlation coefficients () of -0.215 (=0.003) and 0.203 (=0.005), respectively. Age was one of the determinants of tonal ability for NH children. For children with severe to profound hearing loss, early implantation and persistent use of CI are beneficial to their tone production development. Artificial neural network is a convenient and reliable assessment tool for the development of tonal ability of hearing-impaired children who are in the rehabilitation processes that focus on speech and language expression.
本研究旨在通过使用人工神经网络模型探索汉语人工耳蜗植入儿童的声调产生能力，并考察其声调产生表现的潜在影响因素。本研究结果可能为小儿人工耳蜗使用者的术后康复过程提供有用的指导方针。278名接受单侧人工耳蜗植入的语前聋儿童参与了本研究。作为对照，招募了170名年龄相仿的听力正常儿童。总共选择了36个汉语单音节词作为声调产生目标。记录发声样本，并使用自相关算法提取每个音节的基频（F0）轮廓，随后进行人工校正。在MATLAB中创建了一个人工神经网络来对声调产生进行分类。评估了声调产生与几个人口统计学因素之间的关系。小儿人工耳蜗使用者产生汉语声调的准确性远低于听力正常儿童（正确率分别为58.8%和91.5%）。人工耳蜗儿童的声调产生表现存在巨大差异。两组中，第二声和第三声的产生准确性低于第一声和第四声。对于人工耳蜗组，所有错误的声调往往被判断为第一声。声调产生准确性与植入时年龄呈负相关，与人工耳蜗使用时间呈正相关，相关系数分别为-0.215（P=0.003）和0.203（P=0.005）。年龄是听力正常儿童声调能力的决定因素之一。对于重度至极重度听力损失儿童，早期植入和持续使用人工耳蜗有利于其声调产生发展。人工神经网络是一种方便可靠的评估工具，可用于评估以言语和语言表达为重点的康复过程中听力受损儿童的声调能力发展。
