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Updated: Jun 30, 2026

Systematic Hearing Performance Evaluation Process for Adolescents with Cochlear Implantation at Early Ages
Published on: March 24, 2023
Theory of mind and language in children with cochlear implants
Ethan Remmel1, Kimberly Peters
1Department of Psychology, Western Washington University, 516 High Street, Bellingham, WA 98225-9089, USA. ethan.remmel@wwu.edu
Abstract:
Thirty children with cochlear implants (CI children), age range 3-12 years, and 30 children with normal hearing (NH children), age range 4-6 years, were tested on theory of mind and language measures. The CI children showed little to no delay on either theory of mind, relative to the NH children, or spoken language, relative to hearing norms. The CI children showed a slightly atypical sequence of acquisition of theory of mind concepts. The CI children's theory of mind performance was associated with general syntactic proficiency more than measures of complement syntax, and with time since implantation more than age at implantation. Results suggest that cochlear implantation can benefit spoken language ability, which may then benefit theory of mind, perhaps by increasing access to mental state language.
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