CHILDREN WITH IMPLANTS CAN SPEAK, BUT CAN THEY COMMUNICATE

English-language skills were evaluated in two groups of profoundly hea ring-impaired children with the Reynell Developmental Language Scales, Revised. The first group consisted of 89 deaf children who had not re ceived cochlear implants. The second group consisted of 23 children we aring Nucleus multichannel cochlear implants. The subjects without imp lants provided cross-sectional language data used to estimate the amou nt of language gains expected on the basis of maturation. The Reynell data from the group without implants were subjected to a regression by age. On the basis of this analysis, deaf children were predicted to m ake half or less of the language gains of their peers with normal hear ing, Predicted language scores were then generated for the subjects wi th implants by using the children's preimplant Reynell Developmental L anguage Scale scores, The predicted scores were then compared with act ual scores achieved by the subjects with implants 6 and 12 months afte r implantation. Twelve months after implantation, the subjects demonst rated gains in receptive and expressive language skills that exceeded by 7 months the predictions made on the basis of maturation alone. Mor eover, the average language-development rate of the subjects with impl ants in the first year of device use was equivalent to that of childre n with normal hearing. These effects were observed for children with i mplants using both the oral and total-communication methods.