Point vowel duration in children with hearing aids and cochlear implants at 4 and 5 years of age

This work investigates the developmental aspects of the duration of point vowels in children with normal hearing compared with those with hearing aids and cochlear implants at 4 and 5 years of age. Younger children produced longer vowels than older children, and children with hearing loss (HL) produced longer and more variable vowels than their normal hearing peers. In this study, children with hearing aids and cochlear implants did not perform differently from each other. Test age and HL did not interact, indicating parallel but delayed development in children with HL compared with their typically developing peers. Variability was found to be concentrated among the high vowels u/, i/ but not in the low vowels /æ, α/. The broad findings of this work are consistent with previous reports and contribute a detailed description of point vowel duration not in the literature.