Sensitivity of expressive linguistic domains to surgery age and audibility of speech in preschoolers with cochlear implants.

Objectives: To determine whether relative delays among domains exist in the conversational use of vocabulary, syntax, and morphology by children with cochlear implants (CIs) and whether these were differentially affected by age of implantation (AOI) and the audibility of speech.

Methods: Participants in this short-term longitudinal study were 126 children with AOI of 6-38 months and a matched group of 30 children without hearing loss. Language samples of the same children at ages 3.

Emergence of speech sounds between 7 and 24 months of cochlear implant use.

Objectives: To investigate the process of speech development in five 42-month-old children with profound deafness who received cochlear implants (CIs) between 19 and 36 months of age and five normal hearing (NH) age mates.

Methods: Conversational samples were collected and transcribed. Sounds produced correctly within meaningful words (target sounds) and recognizable sounds produced in spontaneous productions (target-less sounds) were analyzed for all 10 children.

The effects of audibility and novel word learning ability on vocabulary level in children with cochlear implants.

Objectives: A novel word learning (NWL) paradigm was used to explore underlying phonological and cognitive mechanisms responsible for delayed vocabulary level in children with cochlear implants (CIs).

Methods: One hundred and one children using CIs, 6-12 years old, were tested along with 47 children with normal hearing (NH). Tests of NWL, receptive vocabulary, and speech perception at 2 loudness levels were administered to children with CIs.

Interdependence of linguistic and indexical speech perception skills in school-age children with early cochlear implantation.

Objectives: This study documented the ability of experienced pediatric cochlear implant (CI) users to perceive linguistic properties (what is said) and indexical attributes (emotional intent and talker identity) of speech, and examined the extent to which linguistic (LSP) and indexical (ISP) perception skills are related. Preimplant-aided hearing, age at implantation, speech processor technology, CI-aided thresholds, sequential bilateral cochlear implantation, and academic integration with hearing age-mates were examined for their possible relationships to both LSP and ISP skills.

Design: Sixty 9- to 12-year olds, first implanted at an early age (12 to 38 months), participated in a comprehensive test battery that included the following LSP skills: (1) recognition of monosyllabic words at loud and soft levels, (2) repetition of phonemes and suprasegmental features from nonwords, and (3) recognition of key words from sentences presented within a noise background, and the following ISP skills: (1) discrimination of across-gender and within-gender (female) talkers and (2) identification and discrimination of emotional content from spoken sentences.

Spoken language benefits of extending cochlear implant candidacy below 12 months of age.

Objective: To test the hypothesis that cochlear implantation surgery before 12 months of age yields better spoken language results than surgery between 12 and 18 months of age.

Study Design: Language testing administered to children at 4.5 years of age (± 2 mo).

Enduring advantages of early cochlear implantation for spoken language development.

Purpose: In this article, the authors sought to determine whether the precise age of implantation (AOI) remains an important predictor of spoken language outcomes in later childhood for those who received a cochlear implant (CI) between 12 and 38 months of age. Relative advantages of receiving a bilateral CI after age 4.5 years, better pre-CI-aided hearing, and longer CI experience were also examined.

Expected test scores for preschoolers with a cochlear implant who use spoken language.

Purpose: The major purpose of this study was to provide information about expected spoken language skills of preschool-age children who are deaf and who use a cochlear implant. A goal was to provide "benchmarks" against which those skills could be compared, for a given age at implantation. We also examined whether parent-completed checklists of children's language were correlated with results of standardized language tests and whether scores increased linearly with decreasing age of implantation and increasing duration of cochlear implant use.

Will they catch up? The role of age at cochlear implantation in the spoken language development of children with severe to profound hearing loss.

Purpose: The authors examined the benefits of younger cochlear implantation, longer cochlear implant use, and greater pre-implant aided hearing to spoken language at 3.5 and 4.5 years of age.

Estimating the Influence of Cochlear Implantation on Language Development in Children.

Research studies reviewed here have identified a wide variety of factors that may influence a child's auditory, speech and language development following cochlear implantation. Intrinsic characteristics of the implanted child, including gender, family socio-economic status, age at onset of hearing loss and pre-implant residual hearing may predispose a child to greater or lesser post-implant benefit. Intervention characteristics that may influence outcome include age of the child when deafness is identified and amplification and habilitation is initiated, the communication mode used with the child and the type of classroom/therapy employed.

Effects of early auditory experience on the spoken language of deaf children at 3 years of age.

Objective: By age 3, typically developing children have achieved extensive vocabulary and syntax skills that facilitate both cognitive and social development. Substantial delays in spoken language acquisition have been documented for children with severe to profound deafness, even those with auditory oral training and early hearing aid use. This study documents the spoken language skills achieved by orally educated 3-yr-olds whose profound hearing loss was identified and hearing aids fitted between 1 and 30 mo of age and who received a cochlear implant between 12 and 38 mo of age.

Hearing Status, Language Modality, and Young Children's Communicative and Linguistic Behavior.

This study examined early pragmatic skill development in a group of 38 children with severe or profound hearing loss between 1 and 4 years of age who were enrolled in a simultaneous communication (SC) approach to language learning. Both their use of intentionally communicative acts and their use of language were studied in an analysis of 30-min play sessions between a child and the primary caregiver. Results were compared with previously published data from two age-matched groups: 38 deaf children who were enrolled in oral communication (OC) programs and 84 normally hearing (NH) children.

Personal, social, and family adjustment in school-aged children with a cochlear implant.

Objective: The present study sought to document the psycho-social adjustment of 181 school-aged deaf children who have had a cochlear implant for 4 or more yr and to examine parental satisfaction with the outcome of the implantation process on their child's life and on their family's life in general.

Design: Three measures were employed. One measure was a self-report instrument designed to assess perceived self-competence in children, one was a rating scale completed by parents that sought to assess the degree of their child's personal-social adjustment, and the third was a questionnaire given to parents on which they rated their satisfaction with aspects of the cochlear implant and how it had affected their child's functioning within the context of family life.

Language skills of children with early cochlear implantation.

Objective: This study investigated factors contributing to the comprehension and production of English language by children with prelingual deafness after 4 to 7 yr of multichannel cochlear implant use. The analysis controlled for the effects of child and family characteristics so that educational factors most conducive to maximum implant benefit could be identified.

Design: A battery of language tests were administered to 181 8- and 9 yr-old children from across the United States and Canada who received a cochlear implant by age 5.