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…

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the effect of speech recognition performance, working memory capacity (WMC), and a noise reduction algorithm (NRA) on listening effort as measured with pupillometry in cochlear implant (CI) users while listening to speech in noise. Method: Speech recognition and pupil responses (peak dilation, peak latency,…

Purpose: Processing narrow focus (NF), the stressed word in the sentence, includes both the perceptual ability to identify the stressed word in the sentence and the pragmatic-semantic ability to comprehend the nonexplicit linguistic message. NF and its underlying meaning can be conveyed only via the auditory modality. Therefore, NF can be…

Recent evidence suggests that deaf children with CIs exposed to nonnative sign language from hearing parents can attain age-appropriate vocabularies in both sign and spoken language. It remains to be explored whether deaf children with CIs who are exposed to early nonnative sign language, but only up to implantation, also benefit from this input…

The present study aims to examine the Executive Function (EF) skills of preschool-aged children who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH), and explore the variables related to their EF skills. Thirty preschoolers who were DHH and an additional 35 preschoolers with typical hearing were recruited. All DHH use spoken language as their communication…

Purpose: Verbal working memory (VWM) delays are commonly found in prelingually deaf youth with cochlear implants (CIs), albeit with considerable interindividual variability. However, little is known about the neurocognitive information-processing mechanisms underlying these delays and how these mechanisms relate to spoken language outcomes. The…

Objective: The purpose of this systematic review is to evaluate the published research in auditory training (AT) for pediatric cochlear implant (CI) recipients. This review investigates whether AT in children with CIs leads to improvements in speech and language development, cognition, and/or quality of life and whether improvements, if any,…

Purpose: General language abilities of children with cochlear implants have been thoroughly investigated, especially at young ages, but far less is known about how well they process language in real-world settings, especially in higher grades. This study addressed this gap in knowledge by examining recognition of sentences with complex syntactic…

Purpose: The goal of this study was to determine how various aspects of cognition predict speech recognition ability across different levels of speech vocoding within a single group of listeners. Method: We tested the ability of young adults (N = 32) with normal hearing to recognize Perceptually Robust English Sentence Test Open-set (PRESTO)…

Purpose: Speech recognition relies upon a listener's successful pairing of the acoustic--phonetic details from the bottom-up input with top-down linguistic processing of the incoming speech stream. When the speech is spectrally degraded, such as through a cochlear implant (CI), this role of top-down processing is poorly understood. This study…

We tested the capability of deaf adolescents, including a group of users of cochlear implants, to generate inferences during spoken language comprehension and whether they benefited from the use of sign-supported speech (SSS). Stimuli consisted of 24 short video-recorded texts in spoken language and in SSS. Participants responded to literal and…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the processing of morphosyntactic cues (case and verb agreement) by children with cochlear implants (CIs) in German which-questions, where interpretation depends on these morphosyntactic cues. The aim was to examine whether children with CIs who perceive the different cues also make use of them…

Purpose: To examine the relation between speech recognition and cognitive skills in bimodal cochlear implant (CI) and hearing aid users. Method: Seventeen bimodal CI users (28-74 years) were recruited to the study. Speech recognition tests were carried out in quiet and in noise. The cognitive tests employed included the Reading Span Test and the…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of varying wide dynamic range compression (WDRC) release time on intelligibility and clarity of reverberant speech. The study also considered the role of individual working memory. Method: Thirty older listeners with mild to moderately-severe sloping sensorineural hearing loss…