Cochlear implantation under the first year of age—The outcomes. A critical systematic review and meta-analysis

Language development in children after receiving bilateral cochlear implants between 5 and 18 months

“…It is noteworthy that even though all children in this study received bilateral CIs between 5 and 18 months of age, age at implantation still had an effect on language development. In line with studies of unilateral implantation in children under 12 months old [2,10,11,30,31,32], the children in this study who were implanted between 5 and 12 months attained higher scores and had a significant lead in reaching the normal language range than children who received implants between 12 and 18 months of age. It seems, however, that the effect of early implantation is greatest in the first postoperative years.…”

A Systematic Review to Define the Speech and Language Benefit of Early (<12 Months) Pediatric Cochlear Implantation

“…An earlier review marked the limited and lower quality of evidence for age-at-CI effects on PCI performance [Vlastarakos et al, 2010]. We confirm the lack of level 1 evidence but provide additional evidence from more recent studies [Colletti et al, 2012;Leigh et al, 2013;Holman et al, 2013;Dunn et al, 2014] comparing children implanted before the age of 1 year with children implanted between 12 and 24 months on longer follow-up (>48 months).…”

“…CI outside this sensitive language period might result in the development of different and delayed patterns of speech and language. Because the period of neurolinguistic development is flexible and varies between children, determining the optimal timing for CI based on these time frames remains difficult and has not yet been strictly defined [Vlastarakos et al, 2010].…”

Cross-modal plasticity in cuban visually-impaired child cochlear implant candidates: topography of somatosensory evoked potentials

“…[36] It is said that deaf-blind children do not generally achieve great progress in word production after CI, but do attain marked improvement in their emotional state, attention span and interaction with their environment. [37] Finally, although this study did not examine neural and synaptic mechanisms that could provide supporting evidence of SEP N20 topography changes in CI candidates, we could hypothesize about the phenomena involved by referring to basic experimental fi ndings regarding neuroplastic changes in sensory systems as an effect of single sensory deprivation (auditory or visual) discussed in review articles on the topic. [35,38] In summary, neuroplasticity in deaf-blind children requires further study.…”