THE EFFECT OF LANGUAGE KNOWLEDGE ON SPEECH-PERCEPTION - WHAT ARE WE REALLY ASSESSING

Objective: The authors examined whether open-set speech perception sco res are limited by knowledge of vocabulary and syntax and further cons idered whether remediation of vocabulary and syntax will increase open -set speech perception scores. Study Design: This was a repeated-measu res study design in the setting of a primary (elementary) school for t he hearing-impaired. Patients: The study population was composed of th ree hearing-impaired children using Nucleus 22-channel cochlear implan t. Intervention: intervention used was language remediation sessions. Main Outcome Measures: The main outcome measures were assessment of au ditory-alone speech perception benefit using open-set words and senten ces and assessment of syntactic knowledge using the Test of Syntactic Ability. Outcome measures were applied before and after remediation. R esults: Child 1 and child 2 showed a significant postremediation impro vement in their overall scores on the Test of Syntactic Ability and in their ability to perceive words learned during remediation. Child 1 a nd child 2 also showed a significant improvement in their scores on a modified Bamford-Kowal-Bench open-set sentence test, which specificall y targeted grammatical constructs trained in remediation sessions. Con clusions: Remediation of language knowledge deficits significantly imp roved open-set speech perception for two children, suggesting a need t o include language remediation in cochlear implant habilitation progra ms.