Cochlear implants provide children who have profound hearing loss access to sounds and improve their speech perception, speech production and language skills. Outcomes on language development are useful for counseling and in planning habilitation programs. However, such research in mainland China is scarce due to a lack of standardized language measurement materials. This study aims at developing a vocabulary measurement named the Mandarin Expressive and Receptive Vocabulary Test (MERVT) for Mandarin-speaking children with cochlear implants. In Phase 1, items were selected from the existing vocabulary tests, corpus, story books and TV programs that were suitable for children with normal hearing aged 1 year and 6 months to 3 years and 11 months. These items were rated for age-appropriateness by kindergarten teachers. Based on the teachers’ ratings, 200 words were selected to form the initial vocabulary test. In Phase 2, responses from 102 normal-hearing preschool children were used for item analysis and identifying items with appropriate difficulty and discriminatory ability. Finally, 161 items with difficulty from 0.15 to 0.85 and discrimination greater than 0.25 were kept and ranked in an order of ascending difficulty to form the final test. In Phase 3, 245 normal-hearing children aged 1 year and 6 months to 3 years and 11 months were recruited to establish norms and evaluate psychometric properties of the test. In the last phase, 29 children with cochlear implants were recruited in the study to evaluate the validity of the MERVT for measuring the vocabulary development of children with cochlear implants. The results of the 245 normal-hearing children show that there is good internal consistency among items in both the expressive and receptive subtests (α = .83-.97). Item selection from language materials for Mandarin-speaking preschool children, the ratings by kindergarten teachers and item analysis based on the responses of target children provided evidence of content validity. Significant relationships between the MERVT and the Gesell Developmental Scale (rs = .37-.60, all ps<.05), significant correlations between subtest scores and the total score (rs = .95-.97, all ps<.01), and the gradual increase in mean subtest scores with age provided evidence of construct validity. When the MERVT was administered on a group of children with cochlear implants, significant correlation between scores on the MERVT and the parents’ report—the Chinese version of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory (CCDI)—(rs = .58-.70, all ps＜.05), provided convergent evidence of the construct validity of the MERVT. The growth of the MERVT scores with the increased duration of cochlear implant use and chronological age offered additional evidence of the construct validity. In conclusion, with good reliability and strong validity, the MERVT could be used for evaluating vocabulary development in young children. The test has also been proven to be a valid tool for measuring and monitoring the vocabulary development of children with cochlear implants. In addition, the MERVT and the CCDI can be used together in a hierarchical set of battery tests for measuring the vocabulary development of children with cochlear implants based on the age equivalents. / published_or_final_version / Speech and Hearing Sciences / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Speech and Hearing Sciences / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Language Studies / Master / Master of Arts

published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

中文的一個獨特之處在於，字和詞這兩個水平的單位都可以傳達意義。在中文里，字和詞分別有其獨自的特點。大多數漢字都由部件組成，這些部件多數情況下與整字的讀音和意義有關。詞通常由兩個或兩個以上的字構成，其中多數是復合詞。根據詞中字之間的關系，復合詞有五種常見結構。由於字和詞都傳達意義，於是就產生了兩個漢語中特有的問題：一是字和詞之中哪一個是閱讀加工的基本單位，二是字詞加工之間的關系如何。之前的一些研究為回答這兩個問題提供了一些依據。一些以成人閱讀者作為被試的研究發現，雖然從形式上來講，字是中文文本的基本單位，但是在閱讀中通常作為基本加工單位的是詞。有些研究也發現詞和字的加工是相互影響的。 / 但是，這些研究很少以兒童作為對象。本文中的三個實驗試圖探索上述兩個問題在兒童閱讀者之中的答案，用三年級和五年級的香港本地兒童作為被試以探討有關加工隨著年齡發展的變化。在實驗 1 中，被試被要求讀出一些單字，以及由這些單字組成的詞。結果顯示多數在單字閱讀中出現的錯誤，在讀詞時得到了更正，說明詞有助於兒童對字的識別。與年長的兒童相比，年幼兒童更容易將單字混淆於其他意義相關的單字，或者混同於那些經常與目標字一起出現組成詞的單字，這表明年幼兒童的字加工更依賴於該字經常出現的語境。實驗 2 使用偏正結構詞，並列結構詞以及非詞等三種結構的刺激檢驗了詞的結構對於詞中字的加工的影響。同預期相反，該實驗的結果表明，在偏正結構的詞中，兒童對后一個字的反應并沒有因為其與整詞意義關聯緊密而更加準確和迅速。更有甚者，三年級和五年級的兒童對於偏正結構詞中前一個字的表現都好於后一個字，並且與並列結構詞和非詞相比，偏正結構中前一個字較之后一個字的優勢似乎更加突出。 / 雖然結果與預期不相符，但是三年級和五年級兒童表現比較一致，說明詞結構很有可能確實對其中的字的加工產生了影響，但是這個影響的機制並未由實驗 2揭示出。實驗 3 比較了字音和字形在詞加工中的作用。實驗結果顯示，與年長兒童相比，年幼兒童對於詞的閱讀更加依賴於讀音。探索字詞加工之間的關系需要更多的研究提供證據，而本研究的三個實驗則為以后的研究提供了一些方向。 / One of the unique features in Chinese is that two levels of unit, character and word, are both related to meaning. Both of them have their own features. Most characters are composed by radicals which may give a cue to the characters’ pronunciation and meaning. Words are mostly composed by no less than two characters, and most of them are compound words which usually have 5 types of morphological structures according to the relationship between the meaning of the whole word and its component characters. Since both characters and words convey meaning, two questions arise: which of them is the basic unit of processing when people read, and what is the relationship between readers’ character and word processing. Previous research has provided some evidence to answer these questions. Although characters are the basic graphic units in Chinese script, several studies have shown that adults’ reading is based on words rather than on characters. Meanwhile, it has been found that the processing of words and characters also affect each other. / However, not many studies used children as participants. In this thesis, three experiments were designed to explore these two questions. Children of grade 3 and 5 in Hong Kong primary school were used as participants to investigate the developmental change. In experiment 1, children were asked to read single characters and words that were composed by these characters. Results showed that words actually helped children to recognize characters, for most errors in single character reading got corrected in word reading. Compared to older children, younger children’s character processing was more likely to rely on the context that the character might appear, for they had more errors than older children of confusing the correct character with the word related or meaning related ones. In experiment 2, the effect of word’s morphological structure on the component characters was examined. Three types of structures, i.e., modifier words, coordinative words and nonwords were used to make comparison. The results were opposite to the expectations, for the closer relationship with the word didn’t get any advantage for the second characters in modifier words in lexical decision task. Moreover, both P3 and P5 children’s performance in modifier words on the first character was better than on the second character, and this difference was even larger than in coordinative words and nonwords. Since children of both grades showed the same pattern, the word’s morphological structure still seemed to have effects on the component characters processing, although the mechanism was not clear. Experiment 3 compared the influence of pronunciation and graphemic similarity on word reading, and compared to older children, younger children were more likely to rely on pronunciation, which was consistent with previous studies. This study provided possible directions for future study, and more evidence on the relation between children’s character and word processing is still needed. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Li, Tong. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 55-62). / Abstracts also in Chinese; appendix includes Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Abstract (in Chinese) --- p.iii / Acknowledgements --- p.v / Table of contents --- p.vi / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Introduction of the basic characteristics of Chinese characters and words --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- The relationship between processing of word and character --- p.7 / Chapter 1.3 --- The present study --- p.15 / Chapter 2 --- Experiment 1 --- p.18 / Chapter 2.1 --- Method --- p.18 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Participants --- p.18 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Material --- p.18 / Chapter 2.2 --- Results --- p.20 / Chapter 2.3 --- Discussion --- p.26 / Chapter 3 --- Experiment 2 --- p.28 / Chapter 3.1 --- Method --- p.29 / Chapter 3.1.1 --- Participants --- p.29 / Chapter 3.1.2 --- Material --- p.29 / Chapter 3.1.3 --- Procedures --- p.33 / Chapter 3.2 --- Results --- p..34 / Chapter 3.3 --- Discussion --- p.35 / Chapter 4 --- Experiment 3 --- p.38 / Chapter 4.1 --- Method --- p.38 / Chapter 4.1.1 --- Participants --- p.38 / Chapter 4.1.2 --- Material --- p.38 / Chapter 4.1.3 --- Procedures --- p.39 / Chapter 4.2 --- Results --- p..40 / Chapter 4.3 --- Discussion --- p.42 / Chapter 5 --- General Discussion --- p.43 / Appendix --- p.48 / Bibliography --- p.54