Zhang, L., Wang, J., Hong, T., Li, Y., Zhang, Y., & Shu, H. (In press). Mandarin-speaking kindergarten-aged children with cochlear implants benefit from natural F0 patterns in the use of semantic context during speech recognition. Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research.
Abstract:
Purpose: The purpose of the current study was to investigate the extent to which semantic context and F0 contours affect speech recognition by Mandarin-speaking kindergarten-aged children with CIs.
Method: The experimental design manipulated two factors, i.e., semantic context by comparing the intelligibility of normal sentence vs. word list, and F0 contours by comparing the intelligibility of utterances with natural vs. flat F0 patterns. Twenty- two children with cochlear implants completed the speech recognition test.
Results: Children with cochlear implants could use both semantic context and F0 contours to assist speech recognition. Furthermore, natural F0 patterns provided extra benefit when semantic context was present than when it was absent.
Conclusion: Dynamic F0 contours play an important role in speech recognition by Mandarin-speaking children with cochlear implants despite the well-known limitation of cochlear implant devices in extracting F0 information.