The effects of early acoustic hearing on speech perception, language, and literacy abilities of pediatric cochlear implant recipients

Abstract

The primary aim of our current project is to determine the degree to which a period of hearing aid (HA) use facilitates language development in children following the receipt of their first cochlear implant (CI). We tested 117 pediatric CI recipients ranging in age from 5 to 8 years on tests of speech perception and standardized tests of receptive vocabulary and language. Follow up testing (ages 7–10 years) included early literacy assessments. The speech perception test battery includes word recognition in quiet and noise (segmental perception), talker and stress discrimination, and emotion identification (suprasegmental perception). A continuum of residual hearing levels and length of HA use are represented: some children have bimodal devices, while others received their second CI either simultaneously or sequentially at varying time intervals since their first CI (mean age at 1st CI/s = 2.1 years). Comprehensive threshold and device histories were collected on all CI recipients. Based on our analyses, w...