Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis.
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2023 Apr 12;66(4):1394-1409. doi: 10.1044/2022_JSLHR-22-00383. Epub 2023 Mar 1.
Verbal fluency tasks assess the ability to quickly and efficiently retrieve words from the mental lexicon by requiring subjects to rapidly generate words within a phonological or semantic category. This study investigated differences between cochlear implant users and normal-hearing peers in the clustering and time course of word retrieval during phonological and semantic verbal fluency tasks.
Twenty-eight children and adolescents (aged 9-17 years) with cochlear implants and 33 normal-hearing peers completed measures of verbal fluency, nonverbal intelligence, speech perception, and verbal short-term/working memory. Phonological and semantic verbal fluency tests were scored for total words generated, words generated in each 10-s interval of the 1-min task, latency to first word generated, number of word clusters, average cluster size, and number of word/cluster switches.
Children and adolescents with cochlear implants generated fewer words than normal-hearing peers throughout the entire 60-s time interval of the phonological and semantic fluency tasks. Cochlear implant users also had slower start latency times and produced fewer clusters and switches than normal-hearing peers during the phonological fluency task. Speech perception and verbal working memory scores were more strongly associated with verbal fluency scores in children and adolescents with cochlear implants than in normal-hearing peers.
Cochlear implant users show poorer phonological and semantic verbal fluency than normal-hearing peers, and their verbal fluency is significantly associated with speech perception and verbal working memory. These findings suggest deficits in fluent retrieval of phonological and semantic information from long-term lexical memory in cochlear implant users.
言语流畅性任务通过要求受试者在语音或语义类别内快速生成单词，评估从心理词汇中快速有效地检索单词的能力。本研究调查了在语音和语义言语流畅性任务中，人工耳蜗使用者与正常听力者在单词检索的聚类和时间进程方面的差异。
28 名（9-17 岁）人工耳蜗使用者和 33 名正常听力者完成了言语流畅性、非言语智力、言语感知和言语短期/工作记忆的测量。对语音和语义言语流畅性测试进行了总词汇量、1 分钟任务中每个 10 秒间隔生成的词汇量、第一个词汇生成的潜伏期、词汇聚类数、平均聚类大小和词汇/聚类转换数的评分。
在整个语音和语义流畅性任务的 60 秒时间间隔内，人工耳蜗使用者生成的词汇量均少于正常听力者。人工耳蜗使用者在语音流畅性任务中的起始潜伏期时间也较慢，产生的聚类和转换次数也少于正常听力者。在人工耳蜗使用者中，言语感知和言语工作记忆得分与言语流畅性得分的相关性强于正常听力者。
人工耳蜗使用者的语音和语义言语流畅性均明显低于正常听力者，且其言语流畅性与言语感知和言语工作记忆显著相关。这些发现表明人工耳蜗使用者在从长期词汇记忆中流畅地检索语音和语义信息方面存在缺陷。
