Tone development in children with cochlear implants

描述（由申请人提供）：超过四分之一的世界人口讲声调语言。其中，普通话是最常用的。在声调语言中，单音节词的音高或声调模式传达词汇意义。在当前的人工耳蜗设计中，复杂声音（例如语音信号）的音高信息的缺乏对讲声调语言的患者提出了特殊的挑战。所提出的研究的目的是调查音调发展（即，声调感知和声调产生）的研究。与音调发展相关的因素将被确定。潜在因素包括实际年龄、耳聋发病年龄、植入体使用持续时间、家庭背景、使用的语音处理策略、教育特征等。在拟定的研究中，所有受试者将从中国最大的人工耳蜗植入中心北京同仁医院的患者人群中招募。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）和听力受损儿童（N =60）将被测试他们的音调感知，识别普通话单音节词中不同音调模式的能力。此外，将记录听力正常和耳蜗植入儿童的语音材料。然后，语音样本将用于：1）音调模式的声学分析;以及2）感知测试，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音调识别，并判断儿童音调产生的可懂度。将进行多元回归分析，以确定上述因素与音调感知和产生测量的任何关联。虽然这项研究主要关注声调的感知和产生，但它对非声调语言的使用者具有重要意义。音高信息的更好表示将有助于分离多个说话者并为耳蜗植入用户提供音乐感知。因此，拟议的研究可以改善许多人工耳蜗使用者的生活质量。

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.