Vowel acoustics in Greek-speaking children with cochlear implants

Abstract

Children who are deaf have been reported to have atypical, often reduced vowel spaces. Improved auditory input via a cochlear implant [CI] may ameliorate such issues, although wide variation among CI users has been observed. Much of the existing literature on speech development post-cochlear implantation assessed speakers of English, which has a rather large vowel inventory. Smaller vowel inventories may be associated with differences in the overall vowel space area as well as in the size of individual vowel areas. This study investigates children acquiring Greek, which has five phonemic vowels /i ɛ a ɔ u/. Seven children with CIs, ages 4–16 years, were age-matched with typically developing children. Vowels were elicited in disyllabic words matched for preceding (bilabial) and following (alveolar) phonetic context: pita, peta, pata, puse, pote. Ten productions of each word were elicited using a picture-naming paradigm. Analyses will compare overall vowel space sizes and the degree of variability of individual vowel categories between the two groups. Investigations of children learning phonologies with smaller vowel inventories will lead to a fuller picture of how deafness and subsequent cochlear implantation impact speech communication across languages. [Work supported by Fulbright Greece and iCARE.]