Morpho-Syntactic Deficit in Children with Cochlear Implant: Consequence of Hearing Loss or Concomitant Impairment to the Language System?

Background: Among implanted children with similar duration of auditory deprivation and clinical history, the morpho-syntactic skills remain highly variable, suggesting that other fundamental factors may determine the linguistic outcomes of these children, beyond their auditory recovery. The present study analyzed the morpho-syntactic discrepancies among three children with cochlear implant (CI), with the aim of understanding if morpho-syntactic deficits may be characterized as a domain-specific language disorder.

Method: The three children (mean age = 7.

Comparison of speech perception benefits with SPEAK and ACE coding strategies in pediatric Nucleus CI24M cochlear implant recipients.

Nine congenitally deaf children who received a Nucleus CI24M cochlear implant and who were fitted with the SPrint speech processor participated in this study. All subjects were initially programmed with the SPEAK coding strategy and then converted to the ACE strategy. Speech perception was evaluated before and after conversion to the new coding strategy using word and Common Phrase speech recognition tests in both the presence and absence of noise.