Perceptual weighting strategies of adolescents with normal hearing or cochlear implants

The distribution of perceptual attention across the myriad acoustic properties of speech undergoes developmental shifts through the first decade of life, changing from a focus on dynamic spectral structure to other kinds of temporal, amplitude, and static spectral properties. These developmental changes accompany a gradual enhancement in sensitivity to phonological structure. A central question concerning spoken language acquisition by children with hearing loss who use cochlear implants (CIs) concerns how they navigate these developmental changes and what effect signal degradation has on developing language abilities, especially sensitivity to phonological structure. To explore these questions, this report describes outcomes of data collected from adolescents with normal hearing and adolescents with CIs. Perceptual weighting factors were computed for static and dynamic spectral properties using a fricative-vowel labeling paradigm. Measures of speech recognition, language abilities, word reading, and phonological processing were also obtained. Results showed that the adolescents with CIs weighted dynamic spectral structure hardly at all. Weighting of static spectral structure was largely related to their abilities to manipulate and retain phonological structure in memory. Overall, these findings indicate that supporting developmental shifts in perceptual weighting strategies should remain a goal of intervention for children with hearing loss who use CIs.