Early-auditory intervention in children with hearing loss and neurodevelopmental outcomes: cognitive, motor and language development.

Background: To date, studies have mostly focused on the language outcome of early-auditory interventions including amplification for congenital hearing loss within the first 6 months. We aimed to examine the effect of early-auditory intervention in patients with congenital hearing loss on cognitive, motor and language outcomes, and determine the clinical variables that affect developmental outcomes.

Methods: The medical records of 104 patients were retrospectively reviewed. Children were evaluated by the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, Third Edition.

Results: The median ages of confirmation of hearing loss, amplification, starting auditory-verbal intervention and cochlear implantation were 9, 10, 13 and 19 months, respectively. Of the patients, 26% received a hearingaid fitting ≤6 months of age. Fifty-one children (49%) had additional disabilities. The median cognitive, language and motor scores of children with no additional disabilities were 95 (65-115), 68 (47-103) and 97 (58- 130), respectively and children with early-auditory intervention (≤6 months) demonstrated higher cognitive, receptive and expressive language subscale scores than late-auditory intervention group (p < 0.05) whereas there was no significant difference in motor scores (p > 0.05). A significant negative correlation was found between additional disability and cognitive, language and motor outcomes (r=-0.78, r=-0.54 and r=-0.75, respectively p < 0.01). There was a significant negative correlation between language outcomes and the degree of hearing loss (r=-0.20, p < 0.05). Multiple regression analyses revealed that additional disability and early-auditory intervention showed a significant amount of variance in cognitive and language scores. The early intervention did not make a significant, independent contribution on motor outcomes whereas additional disability did.

Conclusions: Presence of additional disability was the strongest significant variable on developmental outcomes in hearing-impaired children. In children with no additional disability, significantly better cognitive and language scores were associated with the early-auditory intervention. Motor skills were not affected by the early-auditory intervention.