Semantic organization in children with cochlear implants: computational analysis of verbal fluency

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Developmental Psychology
• Speech and Hearing Sciences

Background:

• Cochlear implants (CIs) facilitate oral language acquisition in children with severe to profound hearing impairments.
• Previous research primarily focused on CI technology and general speech outcomes.
• The organization of semantic networks in children with CIs remains underexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To quantitatively compare the semantic network organization of children with CIs to age-matched normal hearing (NH) children.
• To investigate differences in semantic network structure using verbal fluency tasks.

Main Methods:

• Twenty-seven children with CIs and 27 age- and IQ-matched NH children (ages 7-10) participated.
• A timed animal verbal fluency task was administered.
• Network methodologies were used to analyze and compare semantic network structures.

Main Results:

• Children with CIs exhibited a less developed semantic network structure than NH peers.
• Analysis revealed differences in average shortest path length and network diameter between the groups.
• These structural differences were consistent across sample-matched and word-matched correlation networks.

Conclusions:

• The primary distinction between semantic networks in children with CIs and NH children lies in network structure.
• The semantic network of children with CIs is underdeveloped relative to their NH counterparts.
• Findings have practical and clinical implications for CI users.