Feasibility of a Recasting and Auditory Bombardment Treatment With Young Cochlear Implant Users

There is little to guide clinicians in terms of evidence-based interventions for children with cochlear implants who demonstrate morpheme errors. This feasibility study tested the utility of a treatment targeting grammatical morpheme errors.

Three children (ages 4-5 years) received Enhanced Conversational Recast treatment, a version of conversational recast treatment that focuses on a single morpheme error at a time, emphasizes attention to clinician input, and uses high linguistic variability with clinician input. A period of recasting was followed by 24 auditory presentations of the target morpheme in short sentences. After an initial baseline period, children were treated in individual sessions over 21-26 days.

All children showed improved use of targeted grammatical morpheme use, both in elicited contexts and in terms of spontaneous use. Spontaneous use was best for the 2 children who were implanted earliest and whose audiograms showed the best hearing postimplant. Performance by a 3rd child diagnosed with auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder was more variable but still showed positive change.

The results indicate that the treatment can be effective for children with cochlear implants. The pattern of results across children also suggests potential variables that may moderate treatment effects.