Computational Linguistics & Psycholinguistics, University of Antwerp, Belgium.
Am J Speech Lang Pathol. 2018 May 3;27(2):706-720. doi: 10.1044/2017_AJSLP-16-0130.
This study evaluates intraword or token-to-token variability in the spontaneous speech of Dutch-speaking children with cochlear implants (CIs) longitudinally up to 5 years of age in comparison with intraword variability in age-matched peers with normal hearing (NH).
Spontaneous speech samples of 9 children with CI were collected longitudinally up to age 5. The data of the NH control group consisted of cross-sectional recordings. Children's word productions were categorized into 4 response types of the variability score (consistent correct, consistent incorrect, variable with hits, variable with no hits), and the proportion of whole-word variation (PWV) was calculated.
PWV was high in both groups of children but decreased with age. All response types of the variability score appeared in both groups. Children with CI were significantly more variable than their peers with NH up to age 4, but this difference has disappeared by age 5. Longer words had a higher PWV and were more often consistent incorrect and variable.
Intraword variability was characteristic of children with CI's spontaneous speech productions as it was in children with NH, and a similar factor (word length) affected variability in production. Group comparisons showed higher rates of intraword variability in children with CI, but they seemed to catch up with their peers with NH by age 5.
本研究评估了荷兰语母语儿童人工耳蜗植入者（CI）在 5 岁之前的纵向口语中逐词或逐字的变异性，与具有正常听力（NH）的年龄匹配的同龄人相比。
收集了 9 名 CI 儿童的纵向自然语言样本，直到 5 岁。NH 对照组的数据为横向记录。将儿童的单词生成分为变异性得分的 4 种反应类型（一致正确、一致错误、有命中的变量、无命中的变量），并计算全字变异性（PWV）的比例。
两组儿童的 PWV 都很高，但随着年龄的增长而降低。所有变异性得分的反应类型都出现在两组中。CI 儿童的变异性明显高于同龄的 NH 儿童，直到 4 岁，但这种差异在 5 岁时已经消失。较长的单词具有较高的 PWV，并且更经常是一致错误和变量。
逐字变异性是 CI 儿童自然语言产生的特征，与 NH 儿童的特征相同，并且一个类似的因素（单词长度）影响了产生的变异性。组间比较显示 CI 儿童的逐字变异性更高，但到 5 岁时，他们似乎已经赶上了同龄的 NH 儿童。
