Address correspondence to: Yoon Joo Shim PhD, Department of Otolaryngology, Yonsei UniversityMedical College, 134 Shinchon-dong Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, Korea 120-752.
Receptive language skills of profoundly hearing-impaired children with cochlear implantsSANG HEUN LEE, MYUNG JIN HUH, HANG IM JEUNG, Department of
Otolaryngology, College of Medicine, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, KoreaDAL HEE LEE, GuMi Deaf School, Daegu, Korea
IntroductionChildren develop concepts through their perceptual sensorimotor and socialexperience (Patricia, 1982; Blamey et al., 1996; Truy, 1998). As hearing-impairedchildren are different from hearing children in the way of learning language, youngchildren with profound hearing loss and other handicaps seem to have not onlyhearing problems but other problems in their mentality or psychology. Their languageacquirement is more difficult than that of children with a hearing problem only. Sohandicapped children need special education prior to habilitation of auditory perfor-mance. This study evaluated the perceptive language skill of profoundhearing-impaired children only and hearing impaired children with other handicapswho received cochlear implantation.
Materials and methodsTwenty prelingually profound hearing-impaired children participated in this study, andfive of them had other handicaps as well as a hearing problem. The pure tone averagewas 105 dB hearing level (the range was 95–120 dB HL) in the non-implanted ear.The age at implantation was between 14 months and 43 months (mean 25.56months). The test batteries used for this study were REEL (Receptive and ExpressiveEvaluation of Language scale) and Vocabulary Test of Picture – Korea (1995). Thereceptive language age of REEL included various parameters: eye-contact, sitting,attention to learning or habilitation, simple sentence, sequence items and functionalcomprehension of object. The Vocabulary Test of Picture – Korea was tested onhearing impaired childre who could cooperate in the evaluation. The scores on theREEL and vocabulary scale were analysed with partial correlation and two-tailed test.The period of test was 3, 6, 12 and 24 months after implantation.
ResultsThe receptive language skills in the hearing-impaired only showed clear improvementwith time after cochlear implantation (Figure 1). Eye-contact, attention to learningand habilitation improved soon after implantation, but receptive language compre-hension and functional identification of objects were possible at around 6 months afterimplantation. After 1 year of using the cochlear implant, they could understand about50% of simple sentences and sequence about 30% of items (Figure 2). The receptivelanguage change and vocabulary acquirement in hearing-impaired only was correlatedsignificantly between them (R = 0.7153, p <0.05), which meant that their parents’reports and observations were very useful for habilitation (Figure 4).
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Hearing-impaired children with other handicaps showed a slight improvement intheir receptive language skills, but there was not much change between the preoperativeand 1 year postoperative results(Figures 1 and 3).
100 4th Congress of Asia Pacific Symposium on Cochlear Implant
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Figure 1: Receptive language skills of hearing-impaired only. They showed improvement forreceptive language skills with the time elapsed after cochlear implantation. This pattern was almostsimilar with hearing children’s. Hearing-impaired children with multiple handicaps were littlechanged one year after cochlear implantation.
Figure 2: Improvement of receptive language acquirement in hearing-impaired only. To acquire thereceptive language, it was basic to establish factors such as sitting, eye-contact, attention, auditorymemory span, functional identification, etc. Auditory memory span and functional identification ofobjects were accomplished at between 6 months and 12 months with the implant.
Figure 3: Improvement of receptive language acquirement in hearing-impaired with multiplehandicaps. Although hearing impaired with multiple-handicaps had had cochlear implants for overone year, their development in auditory comprehension was minimal.
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DiscussionMulti-handicapped children with hearing impairment scored less well than hearing-impaired only children. As their auditory performance was not always expressed inpercentage form, their post-implant outcomes were only able to be evaluated subjectively.Almost all children with cochlear implants who participated in this study were shown tochange their lifestyles, not just the hearing-impaired only, but also the multi-handicappedchildren. They were able to learn to hear, react better to dangerous situations, listen tothe voices of parents and strengthen emotional relationships.
ReferencesPatricia RC (1982) Language disorders in preschool children. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall,
pp. 11–51.Blamey P, Arndt P, Bergeron F et al. (1996) Factors affecting auditory performance of postlinguisti-
cally deaf adults using cochlear implants. Audiology and Neurootology 1(5): 293–306.Truy E, Lina-Granade G, Jonas AM et al. (1998) Comprehension of language in congenitally deaf
children with and without cochlear implants. International Journal of Pediatiric Otolaryngology45: 83–89.
Address correspondence to: Sang-Heun Lee, Department of Otolaryngology, School of Medicine,Kyungpook National University, #102, College of Medicine, 1370 Sankyuk-dong Buk-ku, Daegu702-701, Korea. Tel: +82 53 420 5784. Fax: +82 53 423 4524. Email: [email protected]
Word and speech perception results of 103 caseswith cochlear implants at Nagasaki UniversityY KANDA, Division of Otorhinolaryngology, Department of Translational Medical
Science, Nagasaki University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, and NagasakiBell Hearing Center, Nagasaki, Japan
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Figure 4: Comparison of receptive language and vocabulary development at 12 months after implantation.
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