The influence of parents’ speech on the development of spoken language in German-speaking children with cochlear implants

Abstract

The present study examines the effect of parents’ language input on the linguistic progress of children with cochlear implants. Participants were 21 children with cochlear implants and their mothers. Age at implantation ranged between 14 and 46 months. The study was longitudinal with data collections every 4½ months for a period of 27 months. Spontaneous speech in a free play situation with a parent was recorded at each data point. Children's grammar was measured in terms of Men Length of Utterance (MLU) and the use of noun plurals, verb markings, and case and gender markings on articles. Mothers’ child-directed speech was analysed in terms of MLU, self-repetitions and expansions. Time-lagged correlational analyses were performed relating properties of maternal speech at an earlier data point —while controlling for the child's language level at this data point— to child language at subsequent data points. The results showed that maternal MLU and expansions are positively related to child linguistic progress. Higher maternal MLU and more expansions are related to higher child MLU subsequently. More specifically, expansions of specific grammatical structures are related to an increased correct use of these structures by the child subsequently. This was the case particularly for case and gender marking on articles, but also for noun plurals and verb markings. Maternal self-repetitions were negatively related to child progress in grammar. The results demonstrate an effect on mothers’ language input on the linguistic progress of young children with cochlear implants. Rich language input leads to better language growth.