Speed of Information Processing and Verbal Working Memory in Children and Adolescents With Cochlear Implants.

Background: Verbal working memory delays are found in many deaf children with cochlear implants compared with normal-hearing peers, but the factors contributing to these delays are not well understood. This study investigated differences between cochlear implant users and normal-hearing peers in memory scanning speed during a challenging verbal working memory task. To better understand variability in verbal working memory capacity within each sample, associations between memory scanning speed, speech recognition, and language were also investigated.

Verbal Fluency in Prelingually Deaf, Early Implanted Children and Adolescents With Cochlear Implants.

Purpose: Verbal fluency tasks assess the ability to quickly and efficiently retrieve words from the mental lexicon by requiring subjects to rapidly generate words within a phonological or semantic category. This study investigated differences between cochlear implant users and normal-hearing peers in the clustering and time course of word retrieval during phonological and semantic verbal fluency tasks.

Method: Twenty-eight children and adolescents (aged 9-17 years) with cochlear implants and 33 normal-hearing peers completed measures of verbal fluency, nonverbal intelligence, speech perception, and verbal short-term/working memory.

Verbal Working Memory Error Patterns and Speech-Language Outcomes in Youth With Cochlear Implants.

Purpose: Verbal working memory (VWM) delays are commonly found in prelingually deaf youth with cochlear implants (CIs), albeit with considerable interindividual variability. However, little is known about the neurocognitive information-processing mechanisms underlying these delays and how these mechanisms relate to spoken language outcomes. The goal of this study was to use error analysis of the letter-number sequencing (LNS) task to test the hypothesis that VWM delays in CI users are due, in part, to fragile, underspecified phonological representations in short-term memory.

Functional hearing quality in prelingually deaf school-age children and adolescents with cochlear implants.

Objective: This study investigated differences in functional hearing quality between youth with cochlear implants (CIs) and normal hearing (NH) peers, as well as associations between functional hearing quality and audiological measures, speech perception, language and executive functioning (EF).

Design: Youth with CIs and NH peers completed measures of audiological functioning, speech perception, language and EF. Parents completed the Quality of Hearing Scale (QHS), a questionnaire measure of functional hearing quality.

Language processing fluency and verbal working memory in prelingually deaf long-term cochlear implant users: A pilot study.

Objective: Verbal working memory (WM) is more strongly correlated with spoken language skills in prelingually deaf, early-implanted cochlear implant (CI) users than in normal-hearing (NH) peers, suggesting that CI users access WM in order to support and compensate for their slower, more effortful spoken language processing. This pilot study tested the feasibility and validity of a dual-task method for establishing the causal role of WM in basic language processing (lexical access speed) in samples of 9 CI users (ages 8-26 years) and 9 NH peers.

Methods: Participants completed tests of lexical access speed (rapid automatized picture naming test and lexical decision test) under two administration conditions: a standard condition and a dual-task WM condition requiring participants to hold numerals in WM during completion of the lexical access speed tests.

Verbal learning and memory in prelingually deaf children with cochlear implants.

Objective: Deaf children with cochlear implants (CIs) show poorer verbal working memory compared to normal-hearing (NH) peers, but little is known about their verbal learning and memory (VLM) processes involving multi-trial free recall.

Design: Children with CIs were compared to NH peers using the California Verbal Learning Test for Children (CVLT-C).

Study Sample: Participants were 21 deaf (before age 6 months) children (6-16 years old) implanted prior to age 3 years, and 21 age-IQ matched NH peers.