Abstract
BackgroundAttaining socio-emotional competence is challenging for children with hearing impairment. There is wide recognition of children with cochlear implant (CI) indicating significant improvement in their speech and language abilities, however many factors may restrict their chance of having reciprocal social interactions. A significant improvement in speech and language does not automatically affirm the quality of social interactions. This present observation on social-emotional development addressed a more current representative population of children with hearing loss who have benefitted from cochlear implantation.MethodsThe research conducted a systematic review of selected articles from Scopus and PubMed databases, retrieved through three search-process keywords, namely socio-emotional, children and CI. The inclusion criteria only included journal articles published in English with empirical data from the year 2010–2019. The initial search had identified 189 potential abstracts and after removal of duplicates, only 38 eligible studies met the inclusion criteria.ResultsAmong 38 studies reviewed, 19 studies showed comparable socio-emotional skills with peers in social interaction, empathy, emotion theory of mind and comprehension skills. Conversely, the other 19 studies presented underprivileged results in socio-emotional functioning mainly in identifying facial expression, regulating emotion and emotional cues in the auditory domain.ConclusionThis review concluded that the socio-emotional development among children with CI, both at preschool-age and school-age, was not justified due to the heterogeneity in studies across measurement and small sample size. Also, the conclusion recommended extensive cross-referencing, mixed-mode research design, detailed distinguishing of socio-emotional functioning and identification of diverse groups of the population with impaired hearing as an approach to provide empirical evidence on socio-emotional functioning among children with CI in the future.
Highlights
In childhood curriculum among those with severe to profound hearing-impairment and children with cochlear implant (CI), certain key areas focus on the auditory development such as hearing, sound, speech and language abilities [1–4]
The investigators managed to systematically review 38 studies published on the socio-emotional development of children with CI
Six studies provided outcomes of social competence only [28, 30, 36, 44, 53, 59], 13 studies provided emotional functioning only [5, 31, 35, 37, 42–43, 48, 52, 54–55, 58, 61, 63], whilst the remaining 19 studies provided a combination of social competence and emotional functioning for pre-school children [27, 29, 32–34, 38–40] and school-aged children [38, 41, 46–47, 49–51, 56–57, 60, 62]
Summary
In childhood curriculum among those with severe to profound hearing-impairment and children with cochlear implant (CI), certain key areas focus on the auditory development such as hearing, sound, speech and language abilities [1–4]. The broadly reported socio-emotional development plays a crucial role in predicting different areas, such as mental health, academic achievement and even job performance [6–7]. Such development hinges on an individual’s self-esteem, the capability to form relationships and empathy skills [8]. A significant improvement in speech and language does not automatically affirm the quality of social interactions. This present observation on social-emotional development addressed a more current representative population of children with hearing loss who have benefitted from cochlear implantation
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