Early communicative behavior in young children receiving cochlear implants: factor analysis of turn-taking and gaze...

Early communicative behaviors in young children can be analyzed quantitatively from recordings of interactions between the child and a known adult. Our previous work has shown that the development of such behaviors differs markedly between profoundly deaf young children 1) able to make proficient use of hearing aids or having cochlear implants and 2) unable to make proficient use of hearing aids. The former take turns mainly by vocalization, whereas the latter take turns mainly by gesture. The present study set out to examine whether these contrasts in behavior demonstrated between groups are also observable within a group of young children having cochlear implants, and to examine their development over the first year of implantation. In the 20 children with complete data at the 12-month interval, two clear factors were identified that explained 72% of the variance. These can be labeled as 1) vocal-auditory turn-taking and 2) gaze orientation. All measures of communicative behavior, other than autonomy, showed significant development over the 12 months following implantation, although the observed increase in eye contact was small. No differences could be demonstrated between children with congenital and acquired deafness. It is concluded that the technique based on video analysis is sensitive to changes in early communicative behavior in the year after implantation. Deviations from the expected pattern may indicate inappropriate processor adjustment, device malfunction, or inadequate support.