Focus Comprehension in Mandarin-Speaking Children Aged 6-12 Years With Cochlear Implants Compared to Children With Typical Development.

Purpose: This study explores the characteristics and development of unmarked and marked focus comprehension in school-age Mandarin-speaking children with cochlear implants (CIs).

Method: The subjects included 17 children with CIs aged 6-8 years and 34 aged 9-12 years, age- and gender-matched children with typical development (TD), and 30 hearing adults. This study employed sentence-picture verification tasks. Participants listened to simple subject-verb-object sentences while viewing pictures, where the focus was indicated by one of four linguistic cues (word order, prosody, focal particle "shì," and context). They were tasked with determining whether the sentences accurately described the pictures and correcting them if they did not match.

Results: Word order and subject context emerged as dominant focal cues across groups, while prosodic cues, object context, and the focal particle played limited roles. TD children's comprehension improved with age, and their comprehension of the particle "shì"-marked focus could reach adult levels by 9-12 years. Children with CIs exhibited distinct developmental patterns, with a high object tendency at 6-8 years. By 9-12 years, this tendency decreased; children with CIs matched TD peers in comprehension of dominant cues but lagged in focal particle and subject context.

Conclusions: Mandarin exhibits a language-specific cue hierarchy, prioritizing word order and context over prosody. Preschool children with CIs demonstrate difficulties and developmental delays in focus comprehension, particularly under complex marker cues.