Pragmatic Competence of Children With Cochlear Implants in Linguistic Activities

The objective of the study was to analyze the pragmatic competence of children with cochlear implants (CIs). The researchers explored whether children with CIs participated in communicative exchanges in a similar way to children with typical hearing (TH), as well as how the participation of children with CIs was regulated by the activity they performed. The sample consisted of 31 children with CIs (prelingually deaf, with a hearing age equal to or greater than 2 years) and 31 children with TH. The researchers used two activities to carry out the study: conversation and picture naming. The results showed that the children with CIs participated in longer communicative exchanges than their peers with TH and had greater difficulty providing adequate responses to their interlocutor. The type of linguistic activity and their hearing age influenced the responses of the children with CIs.