Vocabulary characteristics in CIs (Luo et al., 2022)

<strong>Purpose: </strong>The aim of this study is to evaluate whether Mandarin-speaking children with cochlear implants (CIs) demonstrated early lexical composition similar to their hearing peers who were at the same vocabulary level and the extent to which children with CIs were sensitive to linguistic and conceptual properties when developing early lexicon.
<strong>Method: </strong>Participants were 77 Mandarin-speaking children with CIs who received CIs before 30 months of age. Their expressive vocabulary was documented using the Infant Checklist of the Early Vocabulary Inventory for Mandarin Chinese 9 or 12 months after CI activation. Percent social words, common nouns, predicates (verbs, adjectives), and closed-class words in total vocabulary were computed for children at different vocabulary levels. Common nouns and verbs were further coded for their word class (noun, verb), word frequency, word length, and imageability to predict how likely a given noun or verb would be produced by children with CIs.
<strong>Results:</strong> Like children with typical hearing, social words were the most dominant category when vocabulary size in children with CIs was smaller than 20 words; common nouns became the most dominant category when the vocabulary size reached 21 words. The difference in percent common nouns and percent predicates (i.e., noun bias) was similar in children with CIs and their hearing peers. In addition, verbs, common words, monosyllabic words, and more imageable words were more likely to be produced by children with CIs than their counterparts.
<strong>Conclusions: </strong>Mandarin children with CIs showed language-specific patterns in early lexical composition like their hearing peers. They were able to use multiple linguistic and conceptual cues when approaching early expressive vocabulary despite perceptual and processing constraints.
<strong>Supplemental Material S1. </strong>Results of one-sample t tests by vocabulary size and lexical category.
Luo, J., Xu, L., Wang, M., Xie, D., Li, J., Liu, X., He, S., Spencer, L., Rost, G., &amp; Guo, L.-Y. (2022). Characteristics of early expressive vocabulary in Mandarin-speaking children with cochlear implants. <em>Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research</em>. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_JSLHR-22-00183

<strong>研究目的：</strong>本研究旨在评估佩戴人工耳蜗（cochlear implants, CIs）的普通话母语儿童，在词汇水平匹配的前提下，其早期词汇构成是否与同词汇水平的正常听力同龄儿童相似，并探究人工耳蜗植入儿童在构建早期词汇时，对语言及概念属性的敏感程度。
<strong>研究方法：</strong>本研究的被试为77名在30月龄前接受人工耳蜗植入的普通话母语儿童。在人工耳蜗开机后9或12个月时，采用《普通话早期词汇量表婴儿检查表》（Infant Checklist of the Early Vocabulary Inventory for Mandarin Chinese）记录其表达性词汇水平。针对不同词汇水平的儿童，计算其总词汇中社交词汇、普通名词、谓词（动词、形容词）及封闭类词汇（closed-class words）的占比。进一步对普通名词与动词进行编码，涵盖词类（名词、动词）、词频、词长及意象性（imageability），以预测人工耳蜗植入儿童产出特定名词或动词的概率。
<strong>研究结果：</strong>与正常听力儿童一致，当人工耳蜗植入儿童的词汇量小于20个时，社交词汇为占比最高的词汇类别；当词汇量达到21个及以上时，普通名词成为占比最高的类别。人工耳蜗植入儿童与匹配词汇水平的正常听力儿童，其普通名词占比与谓词占比的差值（即名词偏向）并无显著差异。此外，人工耳蜗植入儿童更倾向于产出动词、高频词汇、单音节词汇及意象性更强的词汇。
<strong>研究结论：</strong>佩戴人工耳蜗的普通话母语儿童，其早期词汇构成呈现与正常听力同龄儿童一致的语言特异性模式。尽管存在感知与加工层面的限制，他们仍能够利用多重语言及概念线索来构建早期表达性词汇。
<strong>补充材料S1：</strong>基于词汇量与词汇类别的单样本t检验结果。
罗佳，徐琳，王萌，谢丹，李静，刘昕，何姗，Spencer, L., Rost, G., & 郭立亚. (2022). 普通话母语人工耳蜗植入儿童早期表达性词汇特征. *Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research*. 提前在线发表. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_JSLHR-22-00183