Factors Influencing Spoken Language Outcomes in Children following Early Cochlear Implantation

Age at implantation and development of vocal and auditory preverbal skills in implanted deaf children

“…Developmental studies in animals and humans indicate that there are critical/sensitive periods during which the developing central nervous system can most readily use sensory information in order to form linguistic structure [15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. Insufficient auditory stimulation during these critical periods of a child's development will most likely lead to linguistic and communicative deficits [22].…”

Sequential bilateral cochlear implantation in children: Parents’ Perspective and device use

“…Literature reports improved speech perception as well as sound localization in children with bilateral CIs (BiCIs) compared to listening with a unilateral CI [4]. A study by Van Deun et al [5] showed that localization abilities in children with BiCIs implanted sequentially correlated significantly with parent-proxy questionnaire data on the Speech, Spatial and Objective: The purpose of this study was (1) to measure parental expectations before surgery of a sequentially placed second cochlear implant and compare these results with parental observations postoperatively and (2) to measure device use of the second cochlear implant and compare to unilateral implant use. Methods: Thirty prelingually deaf children with a unilateral cochlear implant (mean age at first implant 1.8 years) received a second implant at a mean age of 5.3 years.…”

“…During this time, several developments in implant design and stimulation paradigms have been developed and age at implantation decreased. These changes have led to better results [1] and subsequently higher expectations.…”

Cochlear implantation under the first year of age—The outcomes. A critical systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Indeed, age at implantation has been found to influence the auditory performance in profoundly deaf children significantly [26] and thus the development of their speech perception and intelligibility [5][6][7][8]. However, it should be highlighted that there is still a wide variation in individual outcomes [8], and exact contributing factors for this phenomenon have yet to be determined [27].…”