Sources of variability in language development of children with cochlear implants: age at implantation, parental language, and early features of children's language construction

Abstract

A B S T R A C TThe aim of the present study was to analyze the relative influence of age at implantation, parental expansions, and child language internal factors on grammatical progress in children with cochlear implants (CI). Data analyses used two longitudinal corpora of spontaneous speech samples, one with twenty-two and one with twenty-six children, implanted between ; and ;. Analyses were performed on the combined and separate samples. Regression analyses indicate that early child MLU is the strongest predictor of child MLU two and two-and-a-half years later, followed by parental expansions and age at implantation. Associations between earliest MLU gains and MLU two years later point to stability of individual differences. Early type and token frequencies of determiners predict MLU two years later more [*] This research was funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Science Foundation) grants no. Sz /-,  and no. Sz /-,  to the first author. We are most grateful to the children and their parents who so willingly participated in this study.

Spontaneous language production of Italian children with cochlear implants and their mothers in two interactive contexts

“…). Overall, what emerges from our data is the contribution of both environmental (mother's language) and individual (age of activation) variables to the language development of children with CIs, with an added contribution about the language development of Italian children, in line with previous studies on this topic (Szagun and Stumper ).…”

“…Recently, though, Convertino et al (2014) did not find any effect of age at implantation on word knowledge, and Dunn et al (2014), in a longitudinal study using different instruments to assess language outcomes at different age points (annual intervals from 5 to 13 years), showed that the effect of age at implantation (under 2 years versus between 2 and 3.9 years) became weaker with time: the effect on receptive language had disappeared by age 8 and on expressive language by age 10. With regard to this last point, various studies reported considerable variability in the advantage for language development of the lower age of implantation (Convertino et al 2014, Szagun andSchramm 2016) and describe different profiles in children with CIs (de Hoog et al 2016). For example, considering the age at CI activation, some studies found a better language outcome for children whose CI activation occurred at under 12 months of age (Cuda et al 2014, Dettman et al 2016, Leigh et al 2013.…”

“…With regard to this last point, various studies reported considerable variability in the advantage for language development of the lower age of implantation (Convertino et al . , Szagun and Schramm ) and describe different profiles in children with CIs (de Hoog et al . ).…”

“…Many studies have shown that the use of CIs improves children's skills in processing the auditory signal and, consequently, the development of both language comprehension and production (Caselli et al 2012, Guasti et al 2014, Tomblin et al 2008. Nevertheless, many authors have also reported that the development of language skills in children with CIs is variable and influenced by individual and contextual aspects such as age of diagnosis, age at CI activation, nonverbal cognition, preoperative residual hearing, type of language rehabilitation program and environmental stimulation (Caselli et al 2012, de Hoog et al 2016, Szagun and Schramm 2016, Szagun and Stumper 2012.…”

“…With regard to environmental aspects, some studies have shown that the language development of children with CIs is associated with the mother's input (DesJardin et al 2014, Szagun andSchramm 2016) and that particular children's language difficulties were also related to the characteristics of the language to which they were exposed. For example, recent studies with Italian children have reported lower phonological and morphological skills in CI groups than in their typically developing (TD) peers (e.g., Caselli et al 2012, Guasti et al 2014).…”