To reveal the formation process of speech processing with early hearing experiences, we tracked the development of functional connectivity in the auditory and language-related cortical areas of 84 (36 female) congenitally deafened toddlers using repeated functional near-infrared spectroscopy for up to 36 months post cochlear implantation (CI).…

Purpose: The purpose of the current study was to assess dual-task interference (i.e., changes between the dual-task and baseline condition) in a listening effort dual-task paradigm in normal-hearing (NH) adults, hearing aid (HA) users, and cochlear implant (CI) users. Method: Three groups of 31 participants were included: (a) NH adults, (b) HA…

Purpose: Phoneme categorization (PC) for voice onset time and second formant transition was studied in adult cochlear implant (CI) users with early-onset deafness and hearing controls. Method: Identification and discrimination tasks were administered to 30 participants implanted before 4 years of age, 21 participants implanted after 7 years of…

Purpose: Although the existing literature has explored the link between cognitive functioning and speech recognition in noise, the specific role of fluid intelligence still needs to be studied. Given the established association between working memory capacity (WMC) and fluid intelligence and the predictive power of WMC for speech recognition in…

Purpose: Verbal fluency tasks assess the ability to quickly and efficiently retrieve words from the mental lexicon by requiring subjects to rapidly generate words within a phonological or semantic category. This study investigated differences between cochlear implant users and normal-hearing peers in the clustering and time course of word…

The process of spoken word recognition is influenced by both bottom-up sensory information and top-down cognitive information. These cues are used to process the phonological and semantic representations of speech. Several studies have used EEG/ERPs to study the neural mechanisms of children's spoken word recognition, but less is known about the…

Purpose: Speech understanding in noise and horizontal sound localization is poor in most cochlear implant (CI) users with a hearing aid (bimodal stimulation). This study investigated the effect of static and less-extreme adaptive frequency compression in hearing aids on spatial hearing. By means of frequency compression, we aimed to restore…

Purpose: Despite the recommendation for cochlear implant (CI) processor use during all waking hours, variability in average daily wear time remains high. Previous work has shown that objective wear time is significantly correlated with speech recognition outcomes. We aimed to investigate the causal link between daily wear time and speech…

Purpose: This retrospective study aimed to amass large data sets to enable statistical comparisons of communication outcomes for infants receiving cochlear implants (CIs) before 9 months of age compared to groups who received their first CI between 9 months and 3.5 years of age. Method: Speech perception scores and experienced clinicians'…

Purpose: In the context of music and speech perception, this study aimed to assess the effect of variation in one of two auditory attributes--pitch contour and timbre--on the perception of the other in prelingually deafened young cochlear implant (CI) users, and the relationship between pitch contour perception and two cognitive functions of…

Purpose: This research examined the expression of cortical auditory evoked potentials in a cohort of children who received cochlear implants (CIs) for treatment of congenital deafness (n = 28) and typically hearing controls (n = 28). Method: We make use of a novel electroencephalography paradigm that permits the assessment of auditory responses to…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between speech recognition benefit derived from the addition of a hearing aid (HA) to the nonimplanted ear (i.e., bimodal benefit) and spectral modulation detection (SMD) performance in the nonimplanted ear in a large clinical sample. An additional purpose was to investigate…

Purpose: The aim of the study was to assess the susceptibility to energetic and informational masking in patients with single-sided deafness (SSD) with one normal-hearing (NH) ear and a cochlear implant (CI) in the contralateral ear, understand the effect on speech recognition when spatially separating noise and speech maskers, and investigate the…

Purpose: The present study investigates the perception of vowel nasality in French-speaking children with cochlear implants (CIs; CI group) and children with typical hearing (TH; TH group) aged 4-12 years. By investigating the vocalic nasality feature in French, the study aims to document more broadly the effects of the acoustic limitations of CI…

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to determine the effect of hearing aid technology level on listener outcome measures. In addition, we aimed to determine if individual characteristics such as noise acceptance and the demands of the listening environment impacted performance and preference. Method: A repeated-measures, single-blinded research…