[Do Early Cochlear-Implanted Toddlers Show a Better Speech Development than Later Implanted Children?]

Objective: Long term goal in early cochlea implantation in children without any additional disabilities is an age-appropriate speech development. Material and Methods: Speech development in deaf children with cochlear-implant(s) (n=60) was examined with the german language test battery SETK-2 ("Sprachentwicklungstest für 2-jährige Kinder") 2 years after first mapping of the speech processor. Results: More than 68% of the subjects show in all 4 subtests hearing-age equivalent results in receptive and expressive language. 12 children were additionally evaluated by chronological age. 4 of these children show age-appropriate results. There is no significant difference between the children implanted earlier in life (≤12 months) and later implanted children (≥13 months). But it must be kept in mind, that children who were implanted earlier show the same results at a younger age. The discrepancy between their chronological age and their speech development-age is smaller. Speech development in children who grow up bilingually was delayed in German. Conclusions: The results lead to the conclusion that the time of the cochlea implantation is crucial for further development of the children who were born deaf. Rehabilitation concepts have to put a special focus on children who grow up with more than one language.