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Early vocabulary development in children with bilateral cochlear implants
Author(s) -
Välimaa Taina,
Kunnari Sari,
LaukkanenNevala Päivi,
Lonka Eila
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
international journal of language and communication disorders
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.101
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1460-6984
pISSN - 1368-2822
DOI - 10.1111/1460-6984.12322
Subject(s) - vocabulary , psychology , vocabulary development , language development , normative , audiology , developmental psychology , speech perception , hearing loss , cochlear implantation , perception , medicine , linguistics , philosophy , epistemology , neuroscience
Background Children with unilateral cochlear implants (CIs) may have delayed vocabulary development for an extended period after implantation. Bilateral cochlear implantation is reported to be associated with improved sound localization and enhanced speech perception in noise. This study proposed that bilateral implantation might also promote early vocabulary development. Knowledge regarding vocabulary growth and composition in children with bilateral CIs and factors associated with it may lead to improvements in the content of early speech and language intervention and family counselling. Aims To analyse the growth of early vocabulary and its composition during the first year after CI activation and to investigate factors associated with vocabulary growth. Methods & Procedures The participants were 20 children with bilateral CIs (12 boys; eight girls; mean age at CI activation = 12.9 months). Vocabulary size was assessed with the Finnish version of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (CDI) Infant Form and compared with normative data. Vocabulary composition was analysed in relation to vocabulary size. Growth curve modelling was implemented using a linear mixed model to analyse the effects of the following variables on early vocabulary growth: time, gender, maternal education, residual hearing with hearing aids, age at first hearing aid fitting and age at CI activation. Outcomes & Results Despite clear vocabulary growth over time, children with bilateral CIs lagged behind their age norms in receptive vocabulary during the first 12 months after CI activation. In expressive vocabulary, 35% of the children were able to catch up with their age norms, but 55% of the children lagged behind them. In receptive and expressive vocabularies of 1–20 words, analysis of different semantic categories indicated that social terms constituted the highest proportion. Nouns constituted the highest proportion in vocabularies of 101–400 words. The proportion of verbs remained below 20% and the proportion of function words and adjectives remained below 10% in the vocabularies of 1–400 words. There was a significant main effect of time, gender, maternal education and residual hearing with hearing aids before implantation on early receptive vocabulary growth. Time and residual hearing with hearing aids had a significant main effect also on expressive vocabulary growth. Conclusions & Implications Vocabulary development of children with bilateral CIs may be delayed. Thus, early vocabulary development needs to be assessed carefully in order to provide children and families with timely and targeted early intervention for vocabulary acquisition.