Parental Current Practice and Needs in Smart Device Applications for Children with Cochlear Implants

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of present study was 1) to investigate the current practice and participation of parents in auditory rehabilitation for children with cochlear implants (CIs), and 2) to suggest for developing the contents of smart device applications as a tool of their auditory rehabilitation. Methods: A questionnaire was developed to examine the current practice, participation, and needs of smart device applications in auditory rehabilitation and background information. Seventy-seven parents of children with CIs participated in the survey. Results: The parents most frequently used the smartphones for their daily lives and improvement of their children’s auditory performance, followed by tablet PCs and smart TVs. They also allowed children with CIs to use smart devices in order to respond to their children’s requests, to let the children learn something, and to soothe children’s temper tantrums. The parents highly desired smart device applications of auditory habilitation for children with CIs, and there was not a significant difference between groups (infants, preschoolers, schoolers) and types of contents (auditory skills, auditory-language skills, parental education). Conclusion: The results demonstrated that parents were very interested in the possibility of using smart device applications as a tool for improving auditory performance of their children. The current results suggest that parents have needs to receive the auditory rehabilitation services via the smart device applications of their children with CIs.