Perception of vowels and diphthongs by hearing-impaired Cantonese-speaking children with cochlear implants

Abstract

This study investigated the perception of vowels and diphthongs perception of congenital profound bilateral hearing impaired children with cochlear implants (CI). The CI children’s age was ranged from 2:04 to 6:01, and nine CI children were matched with nine hearing children. A closed-set speech perception task was administrated. High-front vowel was found to be the easiest vowel to be perceived, due to the greatest perception difference in the first two formant frequency. The perception of diphthongs was related to their feature complexity. Diphthongs with feature complexity 1 and 2 were easiest to be perceived, while diphthongs with feature complexity 3 and 4 were more difficult to be perceived. With two year duration of cochlear implantation, CI children could catch up with normal hearing children in their perception of vowels and diphthongs. To conclude, cochlear implants helped children with profound hearing loss in the perception of vowels and diphthongs.