Communication skills in pediatric cochlear implant recipients

Detailed longitudinal studies of speech perception, speech production and l anguage acquisition have justified a significant change in the demographics of congenitally and prelingually deaf children who receive cochlear implan ts. A trend toward earlier cochlear implantation has been justified by impr ovements in measures assessing these areas. To assess the influence of age at implantation on performance, age 5 years was used as a benchmark. Thirty -one children who received a Nucleus cochlear implant and use the SPEAK spe ech processing strategy and two children who received a Clarion cochlear im plant and use the CIS strategy served as subjects. The subjects were divide d into three groups based on age at implantation. The groups comprised chil dren implanted before the age of 3 years (n = 14), children implanted betwe en 3 years and 3 years 11 months (n = 11) and those implanted between 4 yea rs and 5 years 3 months (n = 8). The children were further divided accordin g to whether they used oral or total communication. The earlier-implanted g roups demonstrated statistically significant improvements on measures of sp eech perception. Improvements in speech intelligibility as a function of ag e at implant were seen but did not reach statistical significance. The resu lts of the present study demonstrate that early implantation promotes the a cquisition of speaking and listening skills.