Initial Stop Voicing in Bilingual Children With Cochlear Implants and Their Typically Developing Peers With Normal Hearing

Abstract

Purpose: This study focuses on stop voicing differentiation in bilingual children with normal hearing (NH) and their bilingual peers with hearing loss who use cochlear implants (CIs). Method: Twenty-two bilingual children participated in our study (11 with NH, M age = 5;1 [years;months], and 11 with CIs, M hearing age = 5;1). The groups were matched on hearing age and a range of demographic variables. Single-word picture elicitation was used with word-initial singleton stop consonants. Repeated measures analyses of variance with three within-subject factors (language, stop voicing, and stop place of articulation) and one between-subjects factor (NH vs. CI user) were conducted with voice onset time and percentage of prevoiced stops as dependent variables. Results: Main effects were statistically significant for language, stop voicing, and stop place of articulation on both voice onset time and prevoicing. There were no significant main effects for NH versus CI groups. Both children with NH and with CIs differentiated stop voicing in their languages and by stop place of articulation. Stop voicing differentiation was commensurate across the groups of children with NH versus CIs. Conclusions: Stop voicing differentiation is accomplished in a similar fashion by bilingual children with NH and CIs, and both groups differentiate stop voicing in a languagespecific fashion.

Speech Production Accuracy and Variability in Monolingual and Bilingual Children With Cochlear Implants: A Comparison to Their Peers With Normal Hearing

“…As for specific speech patterns produced by young bilingual CI users, studies indicate that bilingual children who use CIs can match the productions of their bilingual peers with NH, such as in voice onset time and prevoicing in each language in word-initial position (Bunta, Goodin-Mayeda, Procter, & Hernandez, 2016). There are, however, unique patterns in the productions of bilingual and monolingual CI users that are reflected in differential productions of postalveolar fricatives and affricates showing effects of both bilingual versus monolingual status and CI use versus NH (Li, Bunta, & Tomblin, 2017).…”

Alveolar and Postalveolar Voiceless Fricative and Affricate Productions of Spanish–English Bilingual Children With Cochlear Implants

“…Regarding the issue of establishing separate phonological representations for the alveolar and postalveolar obstruents in Spanish and English by bilingual children with CIs, a more complex and complete picture emerges than attested in previous work. Regarding initial stop consonants, Bunta, Goodin-Mayeda, et al (2016) found that, similar to bilingual children with NH, bilingual Spanishand English-speaking children with CIs not only differentiated voiced and voiceless stops in their target languages, but they did so differentially across those languages, suggesting language separation. In the present study, it became evident that bilingual children with CIs were able to distinguish fricatives and affricates in their productions of both English and Spanish.…”

“…Caldwell & Nittrouer, 2013;Giezen, Escudero, & Baker, 2010;Uchanski & Geers, 2003) or bilingual (cf. Bunta, Goodin-Mayeda, et al, 2016).…”

“…The elicitation technique used followed well-established criteria used in phonological studies (cf. Bunta, Goodin-Mayeda, et al, 2016;Fabiano-Smith & Goldstein, 2010a, 2010b. First, children were shown a picture and asked to identify what the image depicted (i.e., the experimenter would ask the child, "What is this?"…”

“…Caldwell and Nittrouer (2013) point out that children with CIs "are perfectly capable of forming well-defined phonological categories, as long as they have access to signal properties upon which those categories are based" (p. 24). For example, stop differentiation on the basis of voice onset time is a difference CI users acquire whether they are monolingual English-speaking children (Caldwell & Nittrouer, 2013) or bilingual Spanish and English speakers (Bunta, Goodin-Mayeda, Procter, & Hernandez, 2016). However, when a phonemic contrast is dependent more on spectral cues than temporal or envelope cues, children with CIs may find acquiring the feature challenging.…”