This document discusses a research study that aims to investigate when Mandarin-speaking children with cochlear implants acquire tone sandhi. Tone sandhi refers to tone changes in Mandarin Chinese when two tones are combined. The study hypothesizes that acquisition of tone sandhi will be influenced by age of amplification, chronological age, and whether the child has one or two cochlear implants. One hundred children ages 4-12 will participate in production and perception experiments to test their acquisition of tone sandhi in novel word combinations. The results could provide insights into how age of implantation, therapy, and cochlear implant technology affect tone sandhi learning.

1. Research Question
•Cochlear implants are known to transmit pitch ineffectively
•Poses a challenge for children with CIs
• Especially when learning a tonal language such as Mandarin Chinese
•Tones that vary with context, such as tone sandhi, are late acquired by children
with normal hearing, e.g., 6 years
•The acquisition of tone sandhi may then be very challenging for children with CIs
•When do Mandarin-speaking children with CIs acquire tone sandhi?
Hypotheses
Acquisition will be influenced by
•Amplification age： Early > Late
•Chronological age： Elder > Young
•Bilateral > Unilateral
Method
Participants:
One hundred 4-12-year-old children
Experiments:
Production: Novel compounds [3]
Perception: Mispronunciation task
- eye-tracking [4]
The Development of Tone Sandhi in
Mandarin-Speaking Children with CIs
Implications
•Age of implantation
•Therapeutic intervention
•Cochlear implant device’s
improvement
References
[1] Peng, S. C., Tomblin, J. B., Cheung, H., Lin, Y. S.,
& Wang, L. S. (2004). Perception and production of
Mandarin tones in prelingually deaf children with
cochlear implants. Ear and hearing, 25(3), 251-264.
[2] Li, C. N., & Thompson, S. A. (1977). The
acquisition of tone in Mandarin-speaking children.
Journal of Child Language, 4(2), 185-199.
[3] Wang, C. Y. (2011). Children's Acquisition of Tone
3 Sandhi in Mandarin. ProQuest LLC. 789 East
Eisenhower Parkway, PO Box 1346, Ann Arbor, MI
48106.
[4] Wewalaarachchi, T. D., & Singh, L. (2016).
Effects of Suprasegmental Phonological Alternations
on Early Word Recognition: Evidence from Tone
Sandhi. Frontiers in psychology, 7(627), 1-14
Background
Mandarin Lexical Tones (4 tones)
T1: level; T2: rising; T3: dipping; T4: falling
/ma1/ /ma2/ /ma3/ /ma4/
Tone sandhi rule
T3 + T3 => T2 + T3
/ɕiau3 niau3/ => /ɕiau2 niau3/
Acquisition of Mandarin lexical tones
•Normal hearing children: before age 3
•Children with CIs: later than normal-hearing
children, even when amplified < 1 year [1]
Tone sandhi acquisition: normal-hearing children
•Production studies
o Lexical items: early acquired, 2 years [2]
/ɕiau3 niau3/ => /ɕiau2 niau3/ (“birdie”)
o Novel compounds: late acquired, 6 years [3]
/ta3/ + /tsau3/ => /ta2/ + /tsau3/ (“pick up jujube”)
•Perception studies
o Early sensitivity to lexical tone sandhi errors
3 years [4]
o No studies exploring sensitivity to tone
sandhi errors in novel compounds
Acquisition of tone sandhi by children with CIs?
Ping Tang12 | Nan Xu12| Shuo Wang3| Ivan Yuen2| Katherine Demuth12
1 | The HEARing Cooperative Research Center, Sydney, Australia
2 | ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
3 | Otolaryngology—Head & Neck Surgery, Beijing