The development and implementation of the Nottingham early cognitive and listening links (Early CaLL); A framework designed to support expectation counselling and to monitor the progress, post cochlear implantation, of deaf children with severe (SLD) and profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD) and associated complex needs.

Appropriate outcome measures are required for deaf children with severe (SLD) and profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD). This paper describes the development and structure of the Nottingham Early CaLL Framework and via a series of case-studies, demonstrates its effectiveness in tracking progress over time.: The materials were developed in-house in 2011-2012 and refined through the exploration of established approaches in health and education, an inter-rater reliability study and an extended pilot of the draft materials.

An analysis of the five year outcomes of a cohort of 46 deaf children with severe (SLD) or profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD) and associated complex needs, including autism (ASD), tracked using the Nottingham Early Cognitive and Listening Links (Early CaLL): This framework monitors the relationship between sound processor use and listening, spoken language, cognition and communicative development, following cochlear implantation.

In 2018, routine data of the five year outcomes from a cohort of 46 children, (18 PMLD and 28 SLD, including nine SLD children with an additional diagnosis of ASD), was analysed to investigate the type and amount of benefit provided by cochlear implantation and to examine any differences in outcome patterns across the populations. The level of functional sound processor use achieved over time was reviewed in relation to listening and spoken language outcomes, alongside social engagement, communicative and cognitive development. The extent to which children were able to close the gap between their overall development and their listening abilities was quantified.

Effectiveness of computer-based auditory training for adult users of cochlear implants.

Cochlear implantation is effective at restoring partial hearing to profoundly deaf adults, but not all patients receive equal benefit. The present study evaluated the effectiveness of a computer-based self-administered training package that was designed to improve speech perception among adults who had used cochlear implants for more than three years. Eleven adults were asked to complete an hour of auditory training each day, five days a week, for a period of three weeks.

Bilateral sequential cochlear implantation in the congenitally deaf child: evidence to support the concept of a 'critical age' after which the second ear is less likely to provide an adequate level of speech perception on its own.

This study attempts to answer the question of whether there is a 'critical age' after which a second contralateral cochlear implant is less likely to provide enough speech perception to be of practical use. The study was not designed to predict factors that determine successful binaural implant use, but to see if there was evidence to help determine the latest age at which the second ear can usefully be implanted, should the first side fail and become unusable.Outcome data, in the form of speech perception test results, were collected from 11 cochlear implant programmes in the UK and one centre in Australia.

Disproportionate language impairment in children using cochlear implants.

Objectives: To examine the nature of previously unexplained, severe language impairments in some children using a cochlear implant (CI).

Design: Six prelingually deaf children with unexplained, "disproportionate" language problems (DLI group) were matched to Control children on etiology, age at implantation, and CI experience. All children completed a test battery used to identify specific language impairment in normally hearing children.