Multimodal training using pitch gesture improves Mandarin tone recognition for children with cochlear implant

Prelinguallydeafened Mandarin-speaking children with cochlear implants (CI) encounter a significant challenge in perceiving lexical tones accurately due to their limited language experience and insufficient pitch information provided by CI devices. To facilitate their tonal perception, we examined the role of pitch gestures in the training program, which was reported to be beneficial in acquiring Mandarin lexical tones for foreign learners of Chinese. In the current study, 18 prelingually deafened preschoolers with CI were recruited in Shanghai. They were randomly assigned to two groups. The experimental group was trained with audio and pitch gestures, and the control group was trained with audio only. Three tone-identification tests were conducted before, in the middle, and after the eight training sessions. Although the two groups had identical performance before the training, the experimental group demonstrated significantly better performance than the control group after training sessions, especially in noise conditions. The results thus showed that multimodal training with pitch gestures improved the tone recognition ability of CI children more than sheer auditory training. Our findings offer more evidence to support that learning to perceive lexical tones can be facilitated by multimodal cues and also provide important implications for optimizing rehabilitation training after implantation.