Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2023 Mar 7;66(3):1110-1135. doi: 10.1044/2022_JSLHR-22-00407. Epub 2023 Feb 9.
General language abilities of children with cochlear implants have been thoroughly investigated, especially at young ages, but far less is known about how well they process language in real-world settings, especially in higher grades. This study addressed this gap in knowledge by examining recognition of sentences with complex syntactic structures in backgrounds of speech babble by adolescents with cochlear implants, and peers with normal hearing.
Two experiments were conducted. First, new materials were developed using young adults with normal hearing as the normative sample, creating a corpus of sentences with controlled, but complex syntactic structures presented in three kinds of babble that varied in voice gender and number of talkers. Second, recognition by adolescents with normal hearing or cochlear implants was examined for these new materials and for sentence materials used with these adolescents at younger ages. Analyses addressed three objectives: (1) to assess the stability of speech recognition across a multiyear age range, (2) to evaluate speech recognition of sentences with complex syntax in babble, and (3) to explore how bottom-up and top-down mechanisms account for performance under these conditions.
Results showed: (1) Recognition was stable across the ages of 10-14 years for both groups. (2) Adolescents with normal hearing performed similarly to young adults with normal hearing, showing effects of syntactic complexity and background babble; adolescents with cochlear implants showed poorer recognition overall, and diminished effects of both factors. (3) Top-down language and working memory primarily explained recognition for adolescents with normal hearing, but the bottom-up process of perceptual organization primarily explained recognition for adolescents with cochlear implants.
Comprehension of language in real-world settings relies on different mechanisms for adolescents with cochlear implants than for adolescents with normal hearing. A novel finding was that perceptual organization is a critical factor.
儿童人工耳蜗植入后的一般语言能力已得到深入研究，尤其是在年幼时期，但对于他们在现实环境中处理语言的能力，尤其是在较高年级，我们知之甚少。本研究通过检查青少年人工耳蜗植入者和听力正常的青少年在语音噪声背景下识别具有复杂句法结构的句子，来填补这一知识空白。
进行了两项实验。首先，使用听力正常的年轻人作为规范样本，开发了新的材料，创建了一个句子库，其中包含控制但复杂的句法结构，这些句子以三种不同的语音性别和说话人数的语音噪声呈现。其次，检查了听力正常的青少年或人工耳蜗植入者对这些新材料以及这些青少年在较小年龄使用的句子材料的识别。分析旨在实现三个目标：（1）评估跨多年龄范围的语音识别稳定性；（2）评估在语音噪声中识别具有复杂句法结构的句子；（3）探索在这些条件下，自下而上和自上而下的机制如何解释表现。
结果表明：（1）两组的识别在 10-14 岁的年龄范围内都是稳定的。（2）听力正常的青少年的表现与听力正常的年轻人相似，表现出句法复杂性和背景语音噪声的影响；人工耳蜗植入的青少年总体上识别能力较差，两个因素的影响均减弱。（3）对于听力正常的青少年，语言和工作记忆的自上而下的机制主要解释了他们的识别，但对于人工耳蜗植入的青少年，感知组织的自下而上的过程主要解释了他们的识别。
在现实环境中理解语言对于人工耳蜗植入的青少年来说，依赖于与听力正常的青少年不同的机制。一个新的发现是，感知组织是一个关键因素。
