Differences in the orthographic expectation effect during auditory novel pseudo-character learning in Mandarin-speaking prelingually deaf children with cochlear implants

While the orthographic expectation effect (OEE) is well-documented in alphabetic languages, its manifestation in logographic systems like Chinese, particularly among children with atypical auditory experience such as those with cochlear implants (CIs), remains unexplored. This study investigated whether Mandarin-speaking children can form orthographic expectations for Chinese characters through auditory exposure alone, comparing 36 prelingually deaf children with CIs and 36 age-matched children with normal hearing (NH). Using a novel-word learning paradigm, participants were auditorily exposed to pseudo-characters. Their reaction times in a subsequent lexical decision task were analyzed using Generalized Linear Mixed-Effects Models (GLMM) to compare auditorily learned versus unlearned phonograms and non-phonograms, as well as predictable versus unpredictable phonetic radicals. Results revealed that both groups exhibited significantly faster reaction times for auditorily learned phonograms, and this expectation effect emerged robustly only when the phonetic radicals were highly predictable. However, children with CIs demonstrated markedly slower responses than their NH peers across all conditions. These findings demonstrate that Mandarin-speaking children can form robust orthographic expectations through auditory input regardless of hearing status. Although children with CIs exhibit slower baseline processing speeds due to underlying perceptual constraints, the magnitude of their orthographic expectation effect remains remarkably intact and comparable to their normal-hearing peers. Ultimately, this highlights the resilient nature of cross-modal reading acquisition, offering crucial neurocognitive insights for designing adaptive literacy interventions in clinical and educational settings.