Comparing language progress in cochlear implantation hearing impaired children before and after four years’ age

Abstract

Introduction: A child with hearing loss is facing certain problems arising from deficits in spoken language abilities. Deficient language commonly leads to reading problems, limits academic performance. Many studies have demonstrated that children with severe-to-profound hearing loss understand and produce spoken language better when they have a cochlear implant at younger age, rather than hearing aids. Aim of the work: To compare the outcomes of auditory and language rehabilitation in hearing-impaired children who have received cochlear implant before age of 4 years to those who have been implanted after age of 4years. Patients and Methods: Comparative study, include 30 hearing Impaired children underwent cochlear implantation. Ten children (Group I) underwent CI before age of 4 years, mean age (±SD) was 3.02 (±0.91) and twenty children (Group II) were implanted after age of 4 years, mean age (±SD) was 4.58 (±0.62). All implants used by the children in this study were programmed and mapped in Audiology unit, Sohag university hospitals. Both groups have received post-cochlear auditory and language rehabilitation in Phoniatrics unit, Sohag university hospitals. Assessment was done for four language parameters (receptive language, expressive language, vocabulary size and word class) pre-therapy and after 3, 6 and 9 months. Results: There is no significant differences between both groups on language development.