ACQUISITION OF SPEECH, PRE-COCHLEAR AND POST-COCHLEAR IMPLANTATION - LONGITUDINAL-STUDIES OF A CONGENITALLY DEAF INFANT

This paper details the process of speech acquisition by the first Brit ish, congenitally deaf infant (without additional handicaps) to be fit ted with a multi-channel cochlear implant. The infant's phonologic and phonetic level development using, firstly, acoustic hearing aids and, secondly, a cochlear implant is thoroughly detailed by use of video- and audio-recorded data, taken at weekly intervals and across a variet y of contexts. The paper examines the benefit of early implantation fo r spoken language development and notes the utility of Ling's model of speech acquisition for the habilitation of young, congenitally deaf i mplant recipients.