Bilingual Phonological Acquisition with Cochlear Implant Use: A Comparison of Vowel Production with Normal Hearing Peers

Purpose: This pilot study aims to investigate a specific aspect of how bilingualism and hearing loss may impact phonological development by examining the production of the low front unrounded lax vowel (e.g., the vowel in “cat”) by Spanish-English-speaking bilingual children with hearing loss who use cochlear implants (CIs) and their Spanish-English-speaking bilingual peers with normal hearing (NH). Method: 20 Spanish-English-speaking bilingual children who use CIs (mean age of 6:0) and 20 Spanish-English-speaking bilingual children with NH (mean age of 6:1) produced single-word productions elicited through well-established techniques. The productions were recorded and saved as digital .wav files. The [æ] vowel of target words bat, cat, and hat were analyzed using established procedures in WaveSurfer. A waveform, formant plot, and pitch contour were used to determine the vowel’s duration, fundamental frequency (F0) and its first two formants (F1 & F2). A GLM repeated measure was ran with word at three levels (bat, cat, and hat) and measure at 4 levels (F1, F2, F0, and duration) as the within subject variables. CI use and NH were the between-subject variables. Result: The results showed no statistically significant difference between bilingual CI users and their bilingual peers with NH in reference to the production of the /æ/ phoneme. Conclusion: This study shows no evidence of a difference in the productions of CI users versus their peers with NH. Further investigation will include analyses of other vowels, such as /ɑ/, /i/, and /u/ in English and /ɑ/, /i/, and /u/ in Spanish.