Weighting of cues for fricative place of articulation perception by children wearing cochlear implants

Objective: To determine how children wearing cochlear implants weight cues for fricative perception compared to age-matched children with normal hearing. Design: Two seven-step continua of synthetic CV syllables were constructed, with frication pole varied from /s/ to /integral a <</ within the continuum, and appropriate formant transition values varied across continua. Relative weights applied to the frication, transition, and interaction cues were determined. Study Sample: Ten 5--7-year-old children with normal hearing and ten 5--8-year-old children wearing cochlear implants participated. Results: Both groups of children gave more perceptual weight to the frication spectral cue than to the formant transition cue. Children with normal hearing gave small but significant weight to formant transitions, but the children wearing cochlear implants did not. The degree of cue interaction was significant for children with normal hearing but was not for children wearing cochlear implants. Conclusions: Children wearing a cochlear implant use similar cue-weighting strategies as normal listeners (i.e. all apply more weight to the frication noise than to the transition cue), but may have limitations in processing formant transitions and in cue interaction.