Language use within a national cohort of profoundly hearing-impaired children

Abstract

One of the aims of cochlear implantation is to improve communicative abilities in perception or understanding and in production or intelligibility. Estimates of those abilities should take account of confounding variables within the child and their environment. A postal questionnaire survey was completed by the parents of 1063 profoundly hearing-impaired children who did not have cochlear implants, and the parents of 468 implanted children. Teachers also completed questionnaires for 798 profoundly hearing-impaired non-implanted children and 383 implanted children. Data included a rating for perception and production abilities in three domains: British Sign Language (BSL), sign-supported English (SSE) or signed English (SE), and spoken English. Analyses of the reported ratings controlled for duration of use of a cochlear implant, age of onset of hearing impairment, presence of other disabilities, parental skill level as a marker of socio-economic status (Standard Occupational Classification, 2000), hearing level and age. Analyses of each variable, comparing children similar in all other respects, identified the significant positive differences in ratings shown in Table 1. In summary, higher levels of ability in production and perception in all three domains were reported for children who were older and who had no other disabilities. Higher levels of ability in speech production and perception were reported for children who had an onset of impairment after 3 years of age, who had better average hearing levels and whose parents were classified in a higher skill level. In addition, parents reported higher levels of ability in BSL production for children of families with higher skill levels and in SSE/SE and speech production for children who had used an implant for longer than four years. Higher levels of ability in BSL perception were reported by parents for children who had used implants longer than four years and in speech perception for children who had used implants for longer than two years. These results demonstrate that possession of an implant is