Tone development in children with cochlear implants

描述(申请人提供)：超过四分之一的世界人口说声调语言。其中，普通话是最常用的语言。在声调语言中，单音节单词的音高或声调模式传达了词汇意义。在目前的人工耳蜗术设计中，复杂声音(如语音信号)的基音信息匮乏，这对会说声调语言的患者提出了特殊的挑战。本研究旨在探讨普通话儿童人工耳蜗术后的声调发展(即声调知觉和声调产生)。将确定与音调发展相关的因素。潜在因素包括年龄、耳聋发病年龄、植入物使用时间、家庭背景、采用的语音处理策略、教育特征等。在拟议的研究中，所有受试者将从北京同仁医院的患者群体中招募，北京同仁医院是中国最大的人工耳蜗术中心。接受多通道人工耳蜗植入的母语为普通话的幼儿(N=60)、年龄匹配的听力正常儿童(N=60)和听力障碍儿童(N=60)将接受声调感知测试，即识别普通话单音节单词不同声调模式的能力。此外，听力正常的儿童和植入人工耳蜗的儿童的语音材料将被记录下来。然后，语音样本将用于：1)声学分析声调模式；以及2)知觉测试，其中听力正常的母语为普通话的成年人(N=10)将对儿童产生的音节进行声调识别，并判断儿童声调产生的可理解性。将进行多元回归分析，以确定上述因素与语调感知和产出措施的任何关联。虽然这项研究主要涉及声调的感知和产生，但它对非声调语言的使用者也有重要的启示。更好地表示音调信息将有助于分离多个说话者，并为人工耳蜗用户提供音乐感知。因此，提出的研究可以提高许多人工耳蜗者的生活质量。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): More than a quarter of the world population speaks tone languages. Among them, Mandarin Chinese is the most commonly spoken. In tone languages, the pitch or tone pattern of a monosyllabic word conveys lexical meaning. The paucity of pitch information for complex sounds (such as speech signals) in current cochlear implant design imposes a special challenge for patients who speak tone languages. The purpose of the proposed study is to investigate tone development (i.e., tone perception and tone production) in Mandarin speaking children with cochlear implants. Factors associated with tone development will be identified. Potential factors include chronological age, age of onset of deafness, duration of implant use, family background, speech-processing strategy used, educational characteristics, etc. In the proposed study, all subjects will be recruited from the patient population at Beijing Tongren Hospital, the largest cochlear implant center in China. Native Mandarin-speaking young children who have received multichannel cochlear implants (N= 60), age-matched normal-hearing children (N= 60), and hearing-impaired children (N =60) will be tested for their tone perception, the ability to recognize different tone patterns in Mandarin monosyllabic words. In addition, speech materials will be recorded from normal-hearing and cochlear-implant children. The speech samples will then be used for: 1) acoustic analysis of the tone patterns; and 2) perception tests in which normal-hearing native Mandarin-speaking adults (N= 10) will perform tone recognition on the syllables produced by the children and judge the intelligibility of the children's tone production. Multiple regression analyses will be performed to identify any associations of the above listed factors with the tone perception and production measures. Although the proposed study is primarily concerned with tone perception and production, it has important implications for speakers of non-tonal languages. A better representation of pitch information would be helpful in separating multiple talkers and providing music perception for cochlear-implant users. Therefore, the proposed study could improve quality of life for many cochlear implant users.