Reading Development in Children With Cochlear Implants Who Communicate via Spoken Language: A Psycholinguistic...

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Speech and Hearing Sciences
• Educational Psychology

Background:

• Children with cochlear implants (CIs) often face challenges in reading development.
• Understanding the specific reading subskills and underlying processes in children with CIs is crucial for targeted interventions.
• The Simple View of Reading model provides a framework for examining reading comprehension components.

Purpose of the Study:

• To comprehensively assess reading skills and subskills in children with CIs.
• To investigate the processes influencing early reading development in children with CIs.
• To compare reading abilities and underlying skills between children with CIs and those with normal hearing (NH).

Main Methods:

• A cohort of 14 children with CIs (ages 6-9) and 31 children with NH were evaluated.
• Participants completed a battery of reading and spoken language assessments.
• Statistical analyses, including t tests and regression modeling, were used to compare group performances.

Main Results:

• Children with CIs exhibited significantly lower performance in reading accuracy, phonological processing, and spoken language compared to NH children.
• Word reading accuracy was the primary predictor of reading comprehension for the CI group, while listening comprehension was key for the NH group.
• Both orthographic and phonological processing skills significantly contributed to word reading in both groups.

Conclusions:

• Children with CIs experience more significant early reading difficulties than their NH peers.
• Reading comprehension for all children is linked to listening comprehension and word recognition, aligning with the Simple View of Reading.
• The CI group's reliance on word reading accuracy may indicate less automatic word recognition, despite similar use of orthographic and phonological skills for isolated word reading.