Apprendre à lire avec un implant cochléaire : sur la base de quel signal auditif ?

While normal-hearing (NH) children have already mastered oral language when they learn to read, two possible factors could influence the perception of speech sounds by children with cochlear implants (CI). First, CI children have experienced a period of hearing deprivation which might correspond to a sensitive period in language development. Second, there are several differences between electrical and auditory stimulation. These two constraints might lead to less accurate phonemic perception in CI children in comparison to NH children. Thus, we studied speech perception skills in CI children in order to assess their influence on abilities to recognize written words. The first two studies assessing phoneme perception skills showed that CI children use phonemic and lexical processing similar to NH children but with lesser efficacy. The following three studies evaluated reading skills and showed deficits in the development of reading-related skills (phonemic awareness and phonological short-term memory), the accuracy of reading procedures (sublexical and lexical procedures), and the automaticity of the activation of phonological representations in silent reading. Overall, these results suggest that CI children's difficulties in reading are due to phonemic representations that are less accurate than those of NH children. Nevertheless, the use of cued speech with CI effectively aids the acquisition of phonemic representations by promoting the development of phonemic awareness and the use of reading procedures.Alors que les enfants normo-entendants qui apprennent à lire maîtrisent le langage oral, l'acquisition du langage parlé chez l'enfant implanté est soumise à deux contraintes : (1) une période de privation auditive, qui pourrait correspondre à une période critique ou sensible de l'acquisition du langage oral ; (2) une transmission dégradée du signal auditif par l'implant cochléaire par rapport à celui fournit par l'oreille. Ces deux contraintes pourraient entraîner des difficultés à percevoir la parole et à apprendre à lire. Nous avons donc évalué les performances de perception de la parole des enfants implantés avec pour objectif de préciser leur influence sur le développement de la reconnaissance des mots écrits. Les deux premières expériences évaluant la perception de la parole ont montré que les enfants implantés mettent en œuvre des traitements phonémique et lexical similaires à ceux utilisés par les enfants normo-entendants mais que ces traitements sont moins efficaces. Les trois études suivantes évaluant les compétences en lecture ont mis en évidence des déficits du développement des habiletés associées à la réussite en lecture (conscience phonémique et mémoire à court terme phonologique), du recours précis aux procédures sous-lexicale et lexicale de lecture et de l'activation automatique des représentations phonologiques au cours de la lecture. De manière générale, les résultats de ces études suggèrent que les difficultés en lecture des enfants implantés seraient dues à des représentations phonémiques moins précises que celles des enfants normo-entendants. En revanche, le recours à la Langue Parlée Complétée serait une aide possible à ces difficultés puisqu'il améliore le développement de la conscience phonémique et l'utilisation des deux procédures de lecture

Compréhension et production de phrases, chez de jeunes enfants sourds : des données préliminaires

Introduction Selon le rapport Gillot (1998), 80 % des adultes sourds profonds sont illettrés, en dépit d’une scolarité adaptée à leur handicap. On distingue généralement deux composantes principales de la lecture que sont l’identification des mots écrits et la compréhension (Sprenger-Charolles & Colé, 2003). Alors que, par exemple, les dyslexiques manifestent des déficits dans l’identification des mots écrits, les difficultés en lecture de la population sourde (adultes et enfants) semblent pr..

The influence of lexical knowledge on phoneme discrimination in deaf children with cochlear implants

International audienceThis paper addresses the questions of whether lexical information influences phoneme discrimination in children with cochlear implants (CI) and whether this influence is similar to what occurs in normal-hearing (NH) children. Previous research with CI children evidenced poor accuracy in phonemic perception, which might have an incidence on the use of lexical information in phoneme discrimination. A discrimination task with French vowels and consonants in minimal pairs of words (e.g., mouche/bouche) or pseudowords (e.g., moute/boute) was used to search for possible differences in the use of lexical knowledge between CI children and NH children matched for listening age. Minimal pairs differed in a single consonant or vowel feature (e.g., nasality, vocalic aperture, voicing) to unveil possible interactions between phonological/acoustic and lexical processing. The results showed that both the word and pseudoword discrimination of CI children are inferior to those of NH children, with the magnitude of the deficit depending on the feature. However, word discrimination was better than pseudoword discrimination, and this lexicality effect was equivalent for both CI and NH children. Further, this lexicality effect did not depend on the feature in either group. Our results support the idea that hearing deprivation period may not have consequence on lexical processes implied on speech perception. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Planned statistical analysis

Planned statistical analysis of the dat

Categorical perception of speech sounds in French-speaking children with cochlear implant

International audiencePurpose: The present study investigates the perception of phonological features in French-speaking children with cochlear implants (CIs) compared with normal-hearing (NH) children matched for listening age. Method: Scores for discrimination and identification of minimal pairs for all features defining consonants (e.g., place, voicing, manner, nasality) and vowels (e.g., frontness, nasality, aperture) were measured in each listener. Results: The results indicated no differences in “categorical perception,” specified as a similar difference between discrimination and identification between CI children and controls. However, CI children demonstrated a lower level of “categorical precision,” that is, lesser accuracy in both feature identification and discrimination, than NH children, with the magnitude of the deficit depending on the feature. Conclusions: If sensitive periods of language development extend well beyond the moment of implantation, the consequences of hearing deprivation for the acquisition of categorical perception should be fairly important in comparison to categorical precision because categorical precision develops more slowly than categorical perception in NH children. These results do not support the idea that the sensitive period for development of categorical perception is restricted to the first 1–2 years of life. The sensitive period may be significantly longer. Differences in precision may reflect the acoustic limitations of the cochlear implant, such as coding for temporal fine structure and frequency resolution

Reading and Reading-Related Skills in Children Using Cochlear Implants: Prospects for the Influence of Cued Speech

International audienceWe assessed the reading and reading-related skills (phonemic awareness and phonological short-term memory) of deaf children fitted with cochlear implants (CI), either exposed to cued speech early (before 2 years old) (CS1) or never (CS-). Their performance was compared to that of 2 hearing control groups, 1 matched for reading level (RL), and 1 matched for chronological age (CA). Phonemic awareness and phonological short-term memory were assessed respectively through a phonemic similarity judgment task and through a word span task measuring phonological similarity effects. To assess the use of sublexical and lexical reading procedures, children read pseudowords and irregularwords aloud. Results showed that cued speech improved performance on both the phonemic awareness and the reading tasks but not on the phonological short-term memory task. In phonemic awareness and reading, CS1 children obtained accuracy and rapidity scores similar to CA controls, whereas CS- children obtained lower scores than hearing controls. Nevertheless, in phonological short-term memory task, the phonological similarity effect of both CI groups was similar. Overall, these results support the use of cued speech to improve phonemic awareness and reading skills in CI children

Lexical Influence on the McGurk effect

The present experiment assesses whether lexical information can bias integration — and more particularly fusion — of auditory and visual inputs, which usually occurs at a phonological level. In other words, does the McGurk effect still take place when one of the inputs carries lexical content