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Long-Term Trajectories of the Development of Speech Sound Production in Pediatric Cochlear Implant Recipients
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Long-Term Trajectories of the Development of Speech Sound Production in Pediatric Cochlear Implant Recipients

J. Bruce Tomblin, Shu-Chen Peng, Linda J Spencer and Nelson Lu
Journal of speech, language, and hearing research, Vol.51(5), pp.1353-1368
10/2008
DOI: 10.1044/1092-4388(2008/07-0083)
PMCID: PMC3209961
PMID: 18695018

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Abstract

Purpose This study characterized the development of speech sound production in prelingually deaf children with a minimum of 8 years of cochlear implant (CI) experience. Method Twenty-seven pediatric CI recipients' spontaneous speech samples from annual evaluation sessions were phonemically transcribed. Accuracy for these speech samples was evaluated in piecewise regression models. Results As a group, pediatric CI recipients showed steady improvement in speech sound production following implantation, but the improvement rate declined after 6 years of device experience. Piecewise regression models indicated that the slope estimating the participants' improvement rate was statistically greater than 0 during the first 6 years postimplantation, but not after 6 years. The group of pediatric CI recipients' accuracy of speech sound production after 4 years of device experience reasonably predicts their speech sound production after 5–10 years of device experience. Conclusions The development of speech sound production in prelingually deaf children stabilizes after 6 years of device experience, and typically approaches a plateau by 8 years of device use. Early growth in speech before 4 years of device experience did not predict later rates of growth or levels of achievement. However, good predictions could be made after 4 years of device use.

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