The influence of contextual information on the perception of speech by postlingually and prelingually profoundly hearing-impaired Hebrew-speaking adolescents and adults

Objective: To study linguistic context effects on speech perception by prelingually (N = 10) and postlingually (N = 10) hearing-impaired Hebrew-speaking adolescents and adults. Design: Participants were cochlear implant surgery candidates with profound sensorineural hearing loss (95 dB HL+). Four levels of speech perception materials were presented through the auditory-visual modality: monosyllabic nonsense syllables (phonological content), monosyllabic meaningful words (semantic-lexical), sentences without presented topics (semantic-syntactic), and sentences with topics (topical). Data were analyzed via percentage correct recognition and via k and j factors (Boothroyd & Nittrouer, 1988). Results: Both participant groups performed better when speech material having more contextual information was presented, with no significant intergroup differences. Conclusions: This similar usage of contextual information among prelingually and postlingually hearing-impaired participants is encouraging and suggests the role of factors other than age of onset.