Perception of suprasegmental features of speech by children with cochlear implants and children with hearing aids

This study assessed perception of suprasegmental features of speech by 30 prelingual children with sensorineural hearing loss. Ten children had cochlear implants (CIs), and 20 children wore hearing aids (HA): 10 with severe hearing loss and 10 with profound hearing loss. Perception of intonation, syllable stress, word emphasis, and word pattern was assessed. Results revealed that the two HA groups significantly outperformed the CI group in perceiving both intonation and stress. Within each group, word pattern was perceived best, and then intonation and emphasis, with syllable stress perceived poorest. No significant correlation emerged between age at implantation and perception of the various suprasegmental features, possibly due to participants' relatively late age at implantation. Results indicated that CI use did not show an advantage over HA use in the perception of suprasegmental features of speech. Future research should continue to explore variables that might improve this perception.