Linguistic Intervention Strategies Speech-Language Pathologists Use With Children Using Cochlear Implants

The aim of this study was to explore the strategies that speech-language pathologists (SLPs) use during their linguistic interventions on children with cochlear implants (CIs). The sample comprised 7 SLPs in interactions with 62 children, 31 with CIs and 31 with typical hearing (TH), from 5 to 7 years of age. Two linguistic activities were used: conversation and naming. With children with CIs, the SLPs used 3.8 times more adaptation strategies and 5 times more educational strategies in the conversation activity, and 1.4 times more educational strategies in the naming activity than with children with TH. Communication strategies were significantly more frequent in the conversation activity than in the naming activity while educational strategies were more frequent in the naming activity than in the conversation activity. The auditory age of children with CIs also influenced the use of these two types of strategies, increasing the use of communication strategies by 0.6% and decreasing the use of educational strategies by 1.2% for each month of increase in the auditory age. In order to foster linguistic development, the SLPs used a wide variety of strategies with the children with CIs, adjusting them to the activity and the auditory age.