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

Area of Science:

• Pediatric audiology
• Speech-language pathology
• Developmental pediatrics

Background:

• Cochlear implantation (CI) is a key intervention for profound hearing loss in children.
• Achieving age-appropriate speech development is the primary goal of early CI.
• Assessing speech development requires standardized language assessment tools.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate speech development in deaf children following cochlear implantation.
• To determine the impact of implantation age on speech outcomes.
• To identify factors influencing language acquisition in pediatric CI users.

Main Methods:

• Sixty deaf children with cochlear implants were assessed using the SETK-2 language test.
• Speech development was evaluated two years post-initial speech processor mapping.
• Children were analyzed based on implantation age (≤12 months vs. ≥13 months) and bilingual exposure.

Main Results:

• Over 68% of children achieved hearing-age-equivalent receptive and expressive language skills.
• No significant difference in outcomes was found between early (≤12 months) and later (≥13 months) implantation groups.
• Children implanted earlier demonstrated age-appropriate results at a younger chronological age, with a smaller discrepancy between speech and chronological age.

Conclusions:

• Early cochlear implantation is critical for optimal speech development in children born deaf.
• Bilingual environments may present challenges to German language development in this population.
• Rehabilitation strategies should address the needs of multilingual children with cochlear implants.