A Study on the Phonetic Inventory Development of Children with Cochlear Implants for 5 Years after Implantation

This paper investigates longitudinal phonetic inventories of vowels and consonants of Korean-speaking children with cochlear implants (CIs). They are based on speech data of 7 children with CI over 5 years PI to examine the entire speech production development. Phones produced at least twice by more than 50% children in spontaneous and imitation speech from 6 months to 5 years post-implantation (PI) are compiled in the inventories. The results show and differences and similarities between children with CI and with normal hearing (NH). The vowel and consonant inventories at 6 months PI are larger than those of NH children at 1 year of age whose hearing experience is longer, including liquid [.] and fricative [s]. It can be attributed to biological maturation of CI children. As in children with NH, there is an explosive increase in phonetic inventories during a year after 1-year of robust hearing experience and the inventories are almost complete after 3 years of PI. Phonetic inventories at each time are expected to be references to assess the developmental appropriateness in speech production and guides to direct habilitation goals.

Automated summary

This paper investigates the longitudinal phonetic inventories of vowels and consonants in Korean-speaking children with CI, comparing them to normal hearing children. The results show that the inventories of CI children are initially larger but become similar to those of normal hearing children after a year of stable hearing experience. These inventories can be used as references to assess speech development and guide habilitation goals.