Effect of cochlear implants on children's perception and production of speech prosody.

Japanese 5- to 13-yr-olds who used cochlear implants (CIs) and a comparison group of normally hearing (NH) Japanese children were tested on their perception and production of speech prosody. For the perception task, they were required to judge whether semantically neutral utterances that were normalized for amplitude were spoken in a happy, sad, or angry manner. The performance of NH children was error-free. By contrast, child CI users performed well below ceiling but above chance levels on happy- and sad-sounding utterances but not on angry-sounding utterances. For the production task, children were required to imitate stereotyped Japanese utterances expressing disappointment and surprise as well as culturally typically representations of crow and cat sounds. NH 5- and 6-year-olds produced significantly poorer imitations than older hearing children, but age was unrelated to the imitation quality of child CI users. Overall, child CI user's imitations were significantly poorer than those of NH children, but they did not differ significantly from the imitations of the youngest NH group. Moreover, there was a robust correlation between the performance of child CI users on the perception and production tasks; this implies that difficulties with prosodic perception underlie their difficulties with prosodic imitation.

Music in the lives of deaf children with cochlear implants.

Present-day cochlear implants provide good temporal cues and coarse spectral cues. In general, these cues are adequate for perceiving speech in quiet backgrounds and for young children's acquisition of spoken language. They are inadequate, however, for conveying the rich pitch-patterning of music. As a result, many adults who become implant users after losing their hearing find music disappointing or unacceptable. By contrast, child implant users who were born deaf or became deaf as infants or toddlers typically find music interesting and enjoyable. They recognize popular songs that they hear regularly when the test materials match critical features of the original versions. For example, they can identify familiar songs from the original recordings with words and from versions that omit the words but preserve all other cues. They also recognize theme songs from their favorite television programs when presented in original or somewhat altered form. The motivation of children with implants for listening to music or melodious speech is evident well before they understand language. Within months after receiving their implant, they prefer singing to silence. They also prefer speech in the maternal style to typical adult speech and the sounds of their native language-to-be to those of a foreign language. An important task of future research is to ascertain the relative contributions of perceptual and motivational factors to the apparent differences between child and adult implant users.

Cross-cultural perspectives on pitch memory.

We examined effects of age and culture on children's memory for the pitch level of familiar music. Canadian 9- and 10-year-olds distinguished the original pitch level of familiar television theme songs from foils that were pitch-shifted by one semitone, whereas 5- to 8-year-olds failed to do so (Experiment 1). In contrast, Japanese 5- and 6-year-olds distinguished the pitch-shifted foils from the originals, performing significantly better than same-age Canadian children (Experiment 2). Moreover, Japanese 6-year-olds were more accurate than their 5-year-old counterparts. These findings challenge the prevailing view of enhanced pitch memory during early life. We consider factors that may account for Japanese children's superior performance such as their use of a pitch accent language (Japanese) rather than a stress accent language (English) and their experience with musical pitch labels.

Music recognition, music listening, and word recognition by deaf children with cochlear implants.

OBJECTIVES: To examine the ability of congenitally deaf children to recognize music from incidental exposure and the relations among age at implantation, music listening, and word recognition. DESIGN: Seventeen child implant users who were 4 to 8 yr of age were tested on their recognition and liking of musical excerpts from their favorite television programs. They were also assessed on open-set recognition of three-syllable words. Their parents completed a questionnaire about the children's musical activities. RESULTS: Children identified the musical excerpts at better than chance levels, but only when they heard the original vocal/instrumental versions. Children's initiation of music listening at home was associated with younger ages at implantation and higher word recognition scores. CONCLUSIONS: Child implant users enjoy music more than adult implant users. Moreover, younger age at implantation increases children's engagement with music, which may enhance their progress in other auditory domains.

Music recognition by Japanese children with cochlear implants.

Congenitally deaf Japanese children with cochlear implants were tested on their recognition of theme songs from television programs that they watched regularly. The children, who were 4-9 years of age, attempted to identify each song from a closed set of alternatives. Their song identification ability was examined in the context of the original commercial recordings (vocal plus instrumental), the original versions without the words (i.e., karaoke versions), and flute versions of the melody. The children succeeded in identifying the music only from the original versions, and their performance was related to their music listening habits. Children gave favorable appraisals of the music even when they were unable to recognize it. Further research is needed to find means of enhancing cochlear implants users' perception and appreciation of music.