Listening preference for the native language compared to an unfamiliar language in hearing and hearing-impaired infants after cochlear implantation.

Objective: The goal of this study was to investigate the preference for the native language compared with an unfamiliar language in normally hearing (NH) and hearing-impaired infants with cochlear implants (CIs).

Background: Preference for the native language is an important step in the process of language acquisition because it helps infants to attend to the important signals of their environment. This preference has been shown very early in the infants' life.