Narrative spoken language skills in severely hearing impaired school-aged children with cochlear implants.

Cochlear implants have a significant positive effect on spoken language development in severely hearing impaired children. Previous work in this population has focused mostly on the emergence of early-developing language skills, such as vocabulary. The current study aims at comparing narratives, which are more complex and later-developing spoken language skills, of a contemporary group of profoundly deaf school-aged children using cochlear implants (n=66, median age=8 years 3 months) with matched normal hearing peers.

Expressive vocabulary, morphology, syntax and narrative skills in profoundly deaf children after early cochlear implantation.

Practical experience and research reveal generic spoken language benefits after cochlear implantation. However, systematic research on specific language domains and error analyses are required to probe sub-skills. Moreover, the effect of predictive factors on distinct language domains is unknown.

Oral language and narrative skills in children with specific language impairment with and without literacy delay: a three-year longitudinal study.

This longitudinal study compared the development of oral language and more specifically narrative skills (storytelling and story retelling) in children with specific language impairment (SLI) with and without literacy delay. Therefore, 18 children with SLI and 18 matched controls with normal literacy were followed from the last year of kindergarten (mean age=5 years 5 months) until the beginning of grade 3 (mean age=8 years 1 month). Oral language tests measuring vocabulary, morphology, sentence and text comprehension and narrative skills were administered yearly.

Predictors of spoken language development following pediatric cochlear implantation.

Objectives: Although deaf children with cochlear implants (CIs) are able to develop good language skills, the large variability in outcomes remains a significant concern. The first aim of this study was to evaluate language skills in children with CIs to establish benchmarks. The second aim was to make an estimation of the optimal age at implantation to provide maximal opportunities for the child to achieve good language skills afterward.

Effect of pediatric bilateral cochlear implantation on language development.

Objective: To examine spoken language outcomes in children undergoing bilateral cochlear implantation compared with matched peers undergoing unilateral implantation.

Design: Case-control, frequency-matched, retrospective cross-sectional multicenter study.

Setting: Two Belgian and 3 Dutch cochlear implantation centers.