ASA 124th Meeting New Orleans 1992 October

2pSP1. A six-month post-electrical stimulation effect in speech production.

Dept. of Psychol., City College, 138th St. at Convent Ave., New York, NY 10031

This study documents an unusual effect in cochlear implant patients' speech 6 months following electrical stimulation. Spectrographic measures were made of 45 phonemically balanced words, recorded before and after electrical stimulation (1 day, 1--6 months, and 1 year). Five Nucleus multichannel cochlear implant patients with different deafness histories participated. A prelingually deafened patient showed a steady decrease in F[sub 0] and an increase in duration of several (supra) segmental parameters after electrical stimulation. At 6 months, F[sub 0] reached its lowest value and syllable and vowel durations reached their highest values. A postlingually deafened reimplantation patient also showed cusps 6 months post Nucleus: F[sub 0] increased for the one and only time, aspiration/frication durations in medial and final syllable positions became abnormally long and then corrected at 1 year, and a long closure was introduced , which diminished at 1 year. The possibility of a critical change in modification of F[sub 0] and duration aspects of speech at 6 months is being investigated in other patients. Implications of such a change will be discussed. [Work supported by NIDCD.]