Development of Lexical Connectivity in Pediatric Cochlear Implant Users

The present study examined the performance of pediatric cochlear implant (CI) users on easy (high frequency words from low density neighborhoods) and hard (low frequency words from high density neighborhoods) words on the monosyllabic Lexical Neighborhood Test (LNT) and Multi-syllabic Lexical Neighborhood Test (MLNT). The easy—hard effect (the superior performance on easy words compared to hard words) increased slightly on the LNT for Oral Communication (OC) users but not for Total Communication (TC) users as lexicon size increased. The easy—hard effect was invariant as a function of lexicon size for both OC and TC users on the MLNT. Similarly, the word length effect (the superior performance for long words on the MLNT compared to short words on the LNT) did not vary as a function of lexicon size for either OC or TC users. The size of the easy—hard effect was not correlated with the size of the word length effect for either class of users. When lexicon size was controlled for, OC users performed better on both the LNT and MLNT than did TC users. These results were discussed in terms of how the mental lexicon of CI users develops over time and the role of lexical connectivity in spoken word recognition.