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Pairing New Words With Unfamiliar Objects: Comparing Children With and Without Cochlear Implants

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
Authors:
Emily Lund at Texas Christian University
Emily Lund
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Purpose This study investigates differences between preschool children with cochlear implants and age-matched children with normal hearing during an initial stage in word learning to evaluate whether they (a) match novel words to unfamiliar objects and (b) solicit information about unfamiliar objects during play. Method Twelve preschool children with cochlear implants and 12 children with normal hearing matched for age completed 2 experimental tasks. In the 1st task, children were asked to point to a picture that matched either a known word or a novel word. In the 2nd task, children were presented with unfamiliar objects during play and were given the opportunity to ask questions about those objects. Results In Task 1, children with cochlear implants paired novel words with unfamiliar pictures in fewer trials than children with normal hearing. In Task 2, children with cochlear implants were less likely to solicit information about new objects than children with normal hearing. Performance on the 1st task, but not the 2nd, significantly correlated with expressive vocabulary standard scores of children with cochlear implants. Conclusion This study provides preliminary evidence that children with cochlear implants approach mapping novel words to and soliciting information about unfamiliar objects differently than children with normal hearing.
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JSLHR
Research Article
Pairing New Words With Unfamiliar
Objects: Comparing Children With
and Without Cochlear Implants
Emily Lund
a
Purpose: This study investigates differences between
preschool children with cochlear implants and age-matched
children with normal hearing during an initial stage in word
learning to evaluate whether they (a) match novel words to
unfamiliar objects and (b) solicit information about unfamiliar
objects during play.
Method: Twelve preschool children with cochlear implants
and12childrenwithnormalhearingmatchedforage
completed 2 experimental tasks. In the 1st task, children
were asked to point to a picture that matched either a
known word or a novel word. In the 2nd task, children were
presented with unfamiliar objects during play and were
given the opportunity to ask questions about those objects.
Results: In Task 1, children with cochlear implants
paired novel words with unfamiliar pictures in fewer
trials than children with normal hearing. In Task 2,
children with cochlear implants were less likely to
solicit information about new objects than children
with normal hearing. Performance on the 1st task, but
not the 2nd, significantly correlated with expressive
vocabulary standard scores of children with cochlear
implants.
Conclusion: This study provides preliminary evidence
that children with cochlear implants approach mapping
novel words to and soliciting information about unfamiliar
objects differently than children with normal hearing.
Despite improvements in technology, particularly
relative to speech perception outcomes in the
last decade (Dunn et al., 2014), vocabulary
outcomes for children with cochlear implants lag behind
those of children with normal hearing (Lund, 2016). This
is, perhaps, not surprising. Although children are receiv-
ing cochlear implants at increasingly young ages, there is
growing consensus that language-learning opportunities
missed during the first year of life likely contribute to
later linguistic delays (e.g., Carlson et al., 2018; Houston
& Miyamoto, 2010; Levine, Strother-Garcia, Golinkoff, &
Hirsh-Pasek, 2016). During the first 12 months of infancy,
children with normal hearing develop strategies for parsing
a stream of speech into words and mapping those words
onto the world (Bloom, 2000; Levine et al., 2016). The pur-
pose of this study is to explore the consequences of audi-
tory deprivation on an initial step in the word-learning
process: figuring out how to match a new word with a
referent.
Word Learning in Children With Cochlear Implants
Most studies of spoken word learning in children
with cochlear implants find that these children do not learn
as efficiently as their peers with normal hearing. In studies of
children between the ages of 1 and 3 years, Houston, Stewart,
Moberly, Hollich, and Miyamoto (2012; N=48),Lundand
Schuele (2017; N= 18), and Robertson, von Hapsburg, and
Hay (2017; N= 32) all used different word-learning tasks and
found that children with cochlear implants tended to
learn fewer words than children with normal hearing.
Houston, Carter, Pisoni, Kirk, and Ying (2005; N= 48)
and Walker and McGregor (2013; N= 48) used rapid
word-learning tasks to teach novel names for objects to
preschool-aged children with cochlear implants and age-
matched children with normal hearing. Both studies found
that children with cochlear implants learned fewer words
than children with normal hearing. This lag in learning
appears to continue for older children. Davidson, Geers,
and Nicholas (2014) determined that 6- to 12-year-old
children who had good audibility with a cochlear implant
(n= 46) outperformed children with poor audibility with
a
Davies School of Communication Sciences & Disorders, Texas
Christian University, Fort Worth
Correspondence to Emily Lund: e.lund@tcu.edu
Editor-in-Chief: Sean Redmond
Editor: Lizbeth Finestack
Received December 19, 2017
Revision received February 7, 2018
Accepted May 25, 2018
https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_JSLHR-L-17-0467
Disclosure: The author has declared that no competing interests existed at the time
of publication.
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research •Vol. 61 •2325–2336 •September 2018 •Copyright © 2018 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association 2325
... Triggering refers to the process of recognizing that a word is new and must be learned (Hoover et al., 2010). Children with cochlear implants struggle to pair novel words to nameless pictures in disambiguation tasks, likely reflecting difficulty with triggering (Lederberg et al., 2000;Lund, 2018). The process of configuration involves recognizing and mapping a phonological and semantic representation of a new word to its referent (Leach & Samuel, 2007). ...
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... Despite the adoption of universal newborn hearing screening programs, advances in hearing technology, and increased access to spoken-language services, many children, even those with cochlear implants, continue to develop smaller, less flexible lexicons than their age-matched peers (Davidson et al., 2013;Nittrouer et al., 2018;Nott et al., 2009). Recent research suggests that this difference may be related to delays in developing disambiguation, or assignment of novel words to unfamiliar objects, at least for children with cochlear implants (Lund, 2018b). ...
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