Production of nouns and adjectives of children with cochlear implants and of children with typical hearing

Abstract

This analytical cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the production of nouns and adjectives in 62 children between the ages 5 and 7, with 31 children having Cochlear Implants (CIs) and 31 children having Typical Hearing (TH). The study compaired their performance in a picture naming test of nouns and adjectives. Poisson regression models were fitted to compare the responses of both groups of children, and intra-subject differences between responses to the noun and adjective naming tasks were also analyzed. The results showed that both groups of children produced the same number of non-responses of nouns and of adjectives and a higher number of correct productions of nouns than of adjectives. However, children with CIs produced more errors when naming adjectives than when naming nouns, while this difference is not observed in children with TH. The comparative analysis between both groups of children indicates that children with CIs produced a higher proportion of non-responses when naming nouns, but the same proportion as children with TH when naming adjectives. Children with CIs also produced fewer correct nouns and adjectives and more errors than children with TH. Vocabulary expansion and repair of production errors in children with CIs should be targeted by speech-language pathologists in intervention programs.