What explains perceptual weighting strategies of children with CIs: Auditory sensitivity or language experience?

Cochlear implants (CIs) have tremendously improved speech perception for deaf children, but problems remain. To examine why, this study compared weighting strategies of children with CIs and children with normal hearing (NH), and asked if these strategies are explained solely by the degraded spectral representations they receive through their implants, or if diminished opportunity to hear the ambient language accounts for some of the effect, as well. One hundred 8-year-olds (49 with NH and 51 with CIs) were tested on four measures: (1) labeling of a final-voicing contrast with one duration and one formant-transition cue; (2) labeling of a fricative-place contrast with one stable spectral and one formant-transition cue; (3) duration discrimination; and (4) glide discrimination. Children with NH and CIs weighted the duration cue similarly, suggesting children with CIs have sufficient experience to acquire language-appropriate strategies when cues are salient. Differences in weighting of spectral cues (both ...