Psychomotor development of 4-year-old deaf children with cochlear implants: Three case studies

Hearing is one of our most important senses, and hearing ability has an enormous impact on a child's psychomotor development. Children with auditory perception disorders may show abnormal development in terms of speech, language, and communication skills, as well as other disorders involving the cognitive sphere, social-emotional interactions, and motor development. This paper describes different paths of psychomotor development in three 4-year-old children. All were born with bilateral profound sensorineural hearing loss and were implanted early on with a cochlear implant. A longitudinal study of the children's psychomotor development was done for 3 years from the time of cochlear implantation.

We present three children with congenital, profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. Psychomotor development was evaluated using the Children Development Scale (CDS) and the Psychomotor Development Evaluation Cards (PDEC). The three children were: Girl A (4 years 2 months 17 days) - a user of one CI, last assessment of psychomotor development (PDEC) was 37 months after CI activation; Boy B (4 years 3 months 21 days) - a user of two CIs, last assessment of psychomotor development (PDEC) was 39 months after activation of first CI; Boy C (4 years 1 month 5 days) - user of two CIs, last assessment of psychomotor development (PDEC) was 36 months after activation of the first CI.

Analysis of the results from Girl A showed very poor dynamics of development from the age of 12 months, when the first CDS evaluation was performed, up to the PDEC evaluation performed at age 4 years. The CDS score of Boy B showed a very high level of psychomotor development. The PDEC evaluation performed after 39 months of using the first CI showed that the psychomotor development of Boy B was consistent with his chronological age. Boy C presented an average level of psychomotor development (compared to typically developing children) in his CDS scores in the perioperative period and then at 4, 9, and 14 months after cochlear implantation. After 24 months, his CDS scores showed a high level of psychomotor development. After 3 years of CI use, the PDEC evaluation showed that Boy C had an average score in five tested areas, a high score in the area of fine motor skills and lateralization, and a low score in knowledge and learning competencies.

Children with bilateral profound hearing loss can present different paths of psychomotor development. Children who receive a CI may show an age-appropriate level of psychomotor development compared to typically developing children. However, a hearing, speech, and language rehabilitation specialist responsible for the child still needs to perform regular checkups to monitor all areas of psychomotor development. Also, the effects of the deaf child's environmental determinants on psychomotor development should be studied in detail. These determinants include the parents' emotional state, the parents' involvement in the child's rehabilitation, the family's quality of life, and the presence of deaf siblings. In particular, the difficulties encountered by the mother (or father) in being the parent of a deaf child may hinder the family from receiving adequate support.