Fricatives, affricates, and vowels in Cantonese-speaking children with cochlear implants : an acoustic study

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to acoustically analyze speech performance of Cantonese-speaking children with cochlear implants over a three-month period, and compare it with that of the hearing controls. Three categories of sounds in Cantonese were focused: vowels /i/, /ɛ/, /a/, /ɔ/ and /u/ (first and second formant frequencies), fricatives /s/ and /f/ (noise centre of gravity), and affricates /ts/ and /tsh/ (accuracy, production pattern and duration). Twenty-one subjects with cochlear implants and 21 hearing subjects matched with age and gender were recruited. Speech samples were recorded and analyzed. The results showed that children with cochlear implants demonstrated statistically significant deviated performance for vowels, fricatives, and affricates when compared with the hearing controls. However, children with cochlear implants showed an overall improvement in speech performance for all the sound categories at the second recording. The results supported that prolonged use of cochlear implants brings beneficial effect.