Hearing Status and Prosody in Mother-Child Speech

描述（由申请人提供）：本项目旨在研究儿童听力损失对儿童语用功能和语言韵律的影响。韵律是言语语用功能的重要线索，如标记问题、陈述、请求等。夸张的韵律是母亲对孩子讲话的一个特点。它具有更高的整体音高，扩大的音高范围，并使用独特的音高轮廓。这些特征用于表达情感，引导婴儿的注意力，促进言语感知和语言习得。使用美国国立卫生研究院资助的4至60个月大的母婴互动记录数据库（R01DC006681; R01DC004300; P30DC004662），将评估各种语用类别话语的流行程度，以确定母亲话语由问题、陈述和其他类型话语组成的程度。然后对这些话语进行声学分析，以研究母亲如何使用韵律来表达语用功能，以及母亲如何根据孩子的年龄和听力能力调整韵律。一个平行的声学分析，将检查儿童对母亲说话的语用功能，儿童如何使用韵律发展以及它如何受到听力损失的影响。儿童语用和韵律语言的发展取决于他们早期的听觉和语言经验，这可能受到听力损失和母亲语用语言使用的限制或影响。最后，还将分析母子之间的互动，以评估在发声时机中节奏协调的发展。协调的母子互动对许多发展结果都很重要。了解声音相互作用如何受到听力损失的影响可能会导致改进的补救方法。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The aim of this project is to examine how developmental changes in the pragmatic functions and prosody of speech directed to, and produced by, children is affected by children's hearing loss. Prosody is an important cue to the pragmatic function of speech, such as marking questions, statements, requests. Exaggerated prosody is a hallmark of mothers' speech to children. It has higher overall pitch, expanded pitch range, and uses distinctive pitch contours. These features are used to express emotion, guide infants' attention, and facilitate speech perception and language acquisition. Using an NIH-funded database of recordings of mother-child interactions between 4 and 60 months of age (R01DC006681; R01DC004300; P30DC004662), the prevalence of various pragmatic categories of utterances will be assessed to the determine the degree to which mothers speech consists of questions, statements, and other kinds of utterances. These utterances will then be analyzed acoustically to examine how mothers use prosody to express pragmatic function, and how mothers adapt their prosody to their child's age and hearing ability. A parallel acoustical analysis, will examine the pragmatic function of children's speech to their mothers, how children's use of prosody develops and how it is affected by hearing loss. Children's pragmatic and prosodic speech development depends on their early auditory and language experience, which may be limited or affected by hearing loss and their mothers' pragmatic language use. Finally, mother-child interactions will also be analyzed to assess the development of rhythmic coordination in the timing of vocalizations. Coordinated mother-child interaction is important for many developmental outcomes. Understanding how vocal interactions are affected by hearing loss may lead to improved methods of remediation. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This project aims to identify how hearing loss affects the development of the pragmatic and prosodic aspects of vocal interaction between mothers and their children. Using a database of recordings from a longitudinal (4 to 60 months of age) NIH-funded study (R01DC006681; R01DC004300; P30DC04662) of mothers interacting with their normal hearing and hearing impaired children, the pragmatic function of utterances will be coded, and their use of prosody to mark pragmatic functions will be analyzed acoustically. Given previous research demonstrating the importance of quality mother-child interactions on various developmental outcomes in normal hearing children, a greater understanding of the ways in which hearing loss influences these interactions may lead to improved methods of remediation, and speech and language outcomes.