Communication skills in pediatric cochlear implant recipients

Detailed longitudinal studies of speech perception, speech production and language acquisition have justified a significant change in the demographics of congenitally and prelingually deaf children who receive cochlear implants. A trend toward earlier cochlear implantation has been justified by improvements 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 speech processing strategy and two children who received a Clarion cochlear implant and use the CIS strategy served as subjects. The subjects were divided into three groups based on age at implantation. The groups comprised children implanted before the age of 3 years (n = 14), children implanted between 3 years and 3 years 11 months (n = 11) and those implanted between 4 years and 5 years 3 months (n = 8). The children were further divided according to whether they used oral or total communication. The earlier-implanted groups demonstrated statistically significant improvements on measures of speech perception. Improvements in speech intelligibility as a function of age at implant were seen but did not reach statistical significance. The results of the present study demonstrate that early implantation promotes the acquisition of speaking and listening skills.