Browsing by Subject "sisäkorvaistute"

Faculty Faculty of Medicine Department Department of Psychology and Logopedics Author Mikaela Molander Title Development of syllable stress perception and word finding in children with cochlear implant during speech-music -intervention Subject Logopedics Level/Instruct Master’s Thesis / Ritva Torppa, Eila Lonka Month and year April 2020 Number of pages 59 pages + 9 appendices Abstract Aims. Phonological and lexical development of children with a cochlear implant (CI-children) is often poorer compared to children with normal hearing. There have been only a few studies on word finding (WF) skills of CI-children. As the time frame of childhood language development is narrow and language development of prelingually deaf children is often delayed, it is important to study how to support early speech perception and production of these children. The aim of this study is to find out whether syllable stress perception and WF skills of CI-children develop during a speech-music -intervention. Methods. In this multicase study, four CI-children, aged 5–7 years, were followed through a group intervention with methods and procedures from music and speech therapy. The group was chosen by a public hospital hearing center. Children performed tasks on discrimination of fundamental frequency (F0) and duration four times (at 0, 3, 7 and 12 months) and a test of word finding (accuracy and speed) two times (at 3 and 12 months) during the 12 months follow-up. Quantitative results were compared with previous research data on syllable stress perception of Finnish CI-children and with Finnish background data on the normative WF test used in the follow-up. Results and conclusions. Perception of fundamental frequency (F0) and duration of CI-children improved in almost every task and comparison during the follow-up period. WF skills improved at least in one part-task per child, however individual variation was evident. Only one child showed (both positive and negative) changes quicker than expected according to WF normative data. Changes in WF performance of other children fell within normal variation. There was more positive development in WF accuracy than in WF speed. The reported changes, coincided with the speech-music -intervention, support the assumption that music may have positive effects on syllable stress perception and further on language development of CI-children. Music in family rehabilitation coaching and as part of speech therapy of young CI-children should be encouraged. Keywords cochlear implant, music, prosody, word stress/syllable stress, word finding, children Where deposited Helsingin yliopiston kirjasto – Helda / E-thesis (opinnäytteet) ethesis.helsinki.fi

Aims. Cochlear implant is a device that provides a sense of sound by electric stimulation of the inner ear hair cells and the auditory nerve. This technology enables the acquisition of spoken language to children who are severely hard of hearing, however, there exists a wide range of variation in language outcomes. Language skills can also develop unevenly in different language subdomains. In most cases, the morphosyntactic sub-skills have been shown a delayed development. This can be due to the perceptual problems that continue to be present despite the cochlear implant, because the cochlear implant does not provide normal hearing. Cued Speech allows access to the complete phonological representations of speech and may then improve the learning of morphosyntactic regularities. The aim of this study is to analyze morphosyntactic skills in Finnish children with cochlear implants in cross-sectional setting and discuss the benefits of Cued Speech in the development of these skills. In addition, parents' experiences and attitudes towards Cued Speech are also surveyed. Methods. Four children with severe hearing loss fitted with cochlear implants and exposed to Cued Speech participated. A video material (30 min) was recorded for the study using semi-structured play setting, where the child interacted with his/her parent. The material was analyzed by using the Finnish version of the Index of Productive Syntax (IPSyn), through which the grammatical complexity of spontaneous speech can be assessed. Results were compared with the development of morphosyntax of normally hearing children and with the IPSyn scores of normally hearing children presented in literature. During data collection details of the use of Cued Speech was surveyed from the parent by a paper questionnaire. Results and conclusions. The morphosyntactic abilities of the children using cochlear implants were mainly at the comparative level as that hearing age mates. These results may be explained by the use of Cued Speech but also by many other factors that were not excluded in this study. Nonetheless, the good morphosyntactic abilities of the children along with parent satisfaction with the use of Cued Speech support clinical decision making when different rehabilitation choices to children with hearing impairment are considered.