Understanding acoustic-phonetic environments of prelingual children with cochlear implants: Challenges, tools, and insights

Abstract

Variability in auditory and linguistic environments experienced by prelingual children with cochlear implants (CIs) potentially helps explain variation in their language outcomes. Here, results are presented from several studies from our lab investigating early acoustic-phonetic environments of children with CIs. One collaborative study conducted over 10 years investigated individual differences in acoustic-phonetic quality of maternal speech as predictors of language outcomes in children with CIs. Results showed that properties of maternal speech recorded in the lab—as indexed in part by measures derived from vowel formants and fundamental frequency—significantly predicted infants’ language outcomes and growth on multiple standardized assessments two years after cochlear implantation. Other work has examined the usefulness of a widely adopted commercial automatic speech processing technology—the Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA) system—for investigating individual differences in auditory environments. Results from our study suggested considerable variability across samples in LENA’s accuracy at identifying adult speech, limiting LENA’s value for investigating individual differences in acoustic-phonetic input to children with CIs. Finally, an update is provided on current work using combined signal processing and hand-coding approaches aimed at investigating variability in acoustic input to children with CIs in their home environments. [Work supported by NIH grant R01DC008581.]