The timeline of non-vocal and vocal communicative skills in infants with hearing loss.

Objective: The study investigates what is the link between early verbal and non-vocal abilities, when does predominantly verbal communicative style occur after the intervention with cochlear implants (CI) or hearing aids (HA), and how predictive it is of later linguistic development in deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) infants and children.

Methods: Cohort: children with moderate-to-profound hearing impairment ( = 49, 20 girls, mean age at HA or CI intervention = 15 months, range: 4-35 months).

Measures: Receptive and productive vocabulary at 24 and 36 months and video analysis at 12 months post-intervention.

Assessment of Communication Abilities in Four Children with Early Bilateral CIs in Clinical and Home Environments with LENA System: A Case Report.

Children's language acquisition is underpinned by the quantity and quality of linguistic stimulation. Early diagnosis and cochlear implantation (CI), along with a family-centered intervention, are regarded as critical factors in providing appropriate language stimulation and thus supporting successful language outcomes in children with sensory neural hearing loss (SNHL). Considering the lack of tools to assess early language skills and open issues regarding the early predictors of CI outcomes, our goal was to evaluate the potential usability of the Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA) system as an early assessment and/or predictive tool.

Attention to Speech and Music in Young Children with Bilateral Cochlear Implants: A Pupillometry Study.

Early bilateral cochlear implants (CIs) may enhance attention to speech, and reduce cognitive load in noisy environments. However, it is sometimes difficult to measure speech perception and listening effort, especially in very young children. Behavioral measures cannot always be obtained in young/uncooperative children, whereas objective measures are either difficult to assess or do not reliably correlate with behavioral measures.