Morphosyntactic profile of Egyptian children after 5 years of using unilateral cochlear implants

Abstract

Objectiveto assess the morphosyntactic aspect of language in Egyptian children after 5 years of using unilateral cochlear implants and studying the factors that affect their progress: the chronological age, the age of implantation, the gender, and the duration of using cochlear implant. Also, to assess which of the subcategories of the morphosyntax are affected to help in designing a suitable rehabilitation program. Materials and methods36 Egyptian children using unilateral cochlear implants regularly were enrolled in this cross-sectional study. During the assessment, the chronological age of all children was ranged from 6 years, 7 months to 11 years, 9 months, the duration of using cochlear implants of all children was at least 5 years. The morphosyntactic aspect of language as a part of the REAL scale (Receptive Expressive Arabic Language Scale) was applied by expert Phoniatricians. ResultsMorphosyntactic score was affected negatively by the chronological age, on the other hand, it was not affected by the age of implantation, the gender, or the duration of using cochlear implant. ConclusionAfter 5 years of regular rehabilitation of Egyptian children using unilateral cochlear implants, the morphosyntactic profile can be described as still low compared to normal children. These children have developed many items in morphosyntactic aspects like possessiveness, derivative adjectives, and passive tense but still have a defect especially in male plural formation, past tense, adjectives, and irregular plural formation.