Receptive and Expressive Language Skills of Children with Five Years of Experience Using a Cochlear Implant

Abstract

The language of 7 children who had used a cochlear implant for 5 years was evaluated by means of the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-3, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised, and the Expressive Vocabulary Subtest of the Test of Word Knowledge. All subjects demonstrated impaired skills relative to normal-hearing children on 1 or more subtests. Variability in performance occurred between subjects and within subjects across subtests. Strengths in semantic skills were evident compared to weaker syntactic and morphological abilities. The nature of the subjects' language impairments is considered with reference to language delay and specific language impairment. The findings support the need for further evaluation of the rate and course of development of language subskills. Investigation of the influences of information processing, and learning styles and strategies, on children's outcomes is also warranted. These findings have implications for implementation of optimal habilitation and education programs for children with cochlear implants.

Comparing auditory perception and speech production outcomes: Non-language specific assessment of auditory perception and speech production in children with cochlear implants

“…Many studies demonstrate the benefi t of cochlear implantation in children (for example, Anderson et al, 2004;Osberger et al, 1993;Spencer et al, 2003;Tye-Murray et al, 1995;Waltzman et al, 1997;Young et al, 2002); however, these are often limited to children from one clinic, geographical region or a specifi c language group. This is mainly the result of the availability of assessment measures.…”

Educational performance of pediatric cochlear implant recipients in mainstream classes

“…Many of these children achieve high scores in speech perception, speech intelligibility, and speech production [9,11,12]. Several studies have even shown that children who received early implantation had reading grade levels comparable to their normal hearing peers [7,13,14].…”

Cochlear Implants in Children: A Review

“…It has also been observed that some children with cochlear implants are even able to learn language more quickly than the average child with normal hearing and therefore 'catch up' some of the delay in language acquisition incurred before they received a cochlear implant, with reports of language development at age-appropriate levels between the ages of 4 and 7 years (Yoshinaga-Itano et al, 2010). As with speech perception and speech production, there is still enormous variation in language skills between individuals and between different populations of children (Spencer et al, 2003), with recent reports still documenting many children with significant language delays (Ching, 2010;Connor et al, 2000;Sarant et al, 2009;Young & Killen, 2002).…”