Liang Maojin, Peng Peng, Liu Jiahao, Wang Zhengye, Lai Kaiying, Wang Junbo, Zheng Yiqing, Wang Suiping
Department of Otolaryngology, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital, Institute of Hearing and Speech-Language Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2025 Mar 11;19:1516931. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2025.1516931. eCollection 2025.
The influence of the duration of the subsequent rehabilitation period on the perception of Mandarin tones and vowels has not been fully investigated. This study explores phoneme perception and event-related potential (ERP) responses in prelingually cochlear implant (CI) children, comparing early (eCI) vs. late implantation (lCI) with 5-year rehabilitation.
This study involved 19 early cochlear implanted (eCI) children, 19 late cochlear implanted (lCI) children (both right-ear implantation), and 21 normal-hearing (NH) children as a control group. EEG data were recorded for all groups during a passive multi-feature auditory oddball paradigm, involving deviant and standard stimuli. Behavioral performance was also assessed to validate Electroencephalogram-based (EEG-based) indicators. Results showed that the lCI group had significantly longer P2 latency and amplitude in the ERP test compared to the NH group, but not the eCI group. Both CI groups had smaller mismatch negativity (MMN) amplitudes than the NH group in tone and consonant conditions. The lCI group showed larger late discriminative negativity (LDN) amplitudes than the eCI group in tone and vowel conditions. Behavioral results aligned with EEG findings, with the eCI group performing better than the lCI group in tone and vowel conditions. The LDN amplitude in CI groups is larger for both tone and vowel conditions when the age at cochlear implantation is older.
These results indicate that (1) the earlier the age of implantation, the better the ability to perceive tones; (2) Implantation age of CI showed no significant effect on consonant perception; (3) The LDN component may be an indicator to discriminate eCI and lCI children in terms of Mandarin tone and vowel perception. (4) The P2 latency and amplitude may be an indicator to discriminate NH and CI children in phoneme perception.
后续康复期的时长对普通话声调及元音感知的影响尚未得到充分研究。本研究探讨了语前聋人工耳蜗（CI）植入儿童的音素感知及事件相关电位（ERP）反应，比较了早期（eCI）与晚期植入（lCI）并经过5年康复训练的儿童。
本研究纳入了19名早期人工耳蜗植入（eCI）儿童、19名晚期人工耳蜗植入（lCI）儿童（均为右耳植入），以及21名听力正常（NH）儿童作为对照组。在被动多特征听觉Oddball范式中记录了所有组的脑电图数据，该范式涉及偏差刺激和标准刺激。还评估了行为表现以验证基于脑电图（EEG）的指标。结果显示，与NH组相比，lCI组在ERP测试中的P2潜伏期和波幅显著更长，但eCI组并非如此。在声调及辅音条件下，两个CI组的失配负波（MMN）波幅均小于NH组。在声调及元音条件下，lCI组的晚期辨别负波（LDN）波幅大于eCI组。行为结果与脑电图结果一致，eCI组在声调及元音条件下的表现优于lCI组。当人工耳蜗植入年龄较大时，CI组在声调及元音条件下的LDN波幅均更大。
这些结果表明：（1）植入年龄越早，声调感知能力越好；（2）CI植入年龄对辅音感知无显著影响；（3）LDN成分可能是在普通话声调及元音感知方面区分eCI和lCI儿童的一个指标；（4）P2潜伏期和波幅可能是在音素感知方面区分NH和CI儿童的一个指标。
