Mandarin-Speaking Preschoolers With Cochlear Implants Can Use Duration and Pitch to Mark Prosodic Boundaries

Objectives: This study asked if Mandarin-speaking preschoolers with cochlear implants (CIs) can produce distinct prosodic cues for word boundary marking to disambiguate compounds from lists, and whether their productions are similar to those of their typically hearing (TH) peers. Design: Forty-two 4 to 6-year-old Mandarin-speaking preschoolers with CIs and 64 TH peers participated in an elicited production experiment. Preschoolers produced compounds and lists in carrier sentences. Syllable duration, pause insertion, pause duration, and tonal range were acoustically analyzed. Results: Overall, preschoolers with CIs can produce durational and pitch cues to disambiguate compounds and lists, but their syllable durations and some tonal ranges in lists differ from those of their TH peers, with more pauses and longer pause durations as well. Conclusions: These findings suggest that, despite using CIs, preschoolers can produce prosodic cues for postlexical meaning, but their productions are not yet fully like those of their TH peers.