Long-term outcomes on spatial hearing, speech recognition and receptive vocabulary after sequential bilateral cochlear implantation in children.
Two cochlear implants plus mainstream school give deaf children lasting speech and vocabulary gains.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Sparreboom et al. (2015) tracked kids who got two cochlear implants, one ear after the other. They compared them with kids who still used just one implant.
The team tested spatial hearing, speech recognition, and receptive vocabulary years later. They also noted if each child was in a mainstream school or a special class.
What they found
Children with two implants heard sounds in space better and understood more words. Their vocabulary scores stayed higher than the one-implant group.
The edge was strongest for kids who spent their days in regular classrooms with hearing peers.
How this fits with other research
Meinzen-Derr et al. (2011) seems to disagree. They found large language gaps in implanted children who also had developmental disabilities. The gap disappears when you look only at kids without extra disabilities, matching the positive results here.
Chen et al. (2017) extends the good news. They showed that getting the first implant before age three lets toddlers catch up in vocabulary within one year, no matter the language spoken.
Libero et al. (2016) helps explain why benefits last. Strong phoneme perception and auditory memory after implantation feed later vocabulary growth, so two implants give more input to build those skills.
Why it matters
If you work with implanted children, push for bilateral devices and mainstream placement when possible. Check auditory memory and phoneme skills early; they are the engines for later language. For children with added developmental disabilities, plan extra language-rich therapy even after the second implant.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Sequential bilateral cochlear implantation in profoundly deaf children often leads to primary advantages in spatial hearing and speech recognition. It is not yet known how these children develop in the long-term and if these primary advantages will also lead to secondary advantages, e.g. in better language skills. The aim of the present longitudinal cohort study was to assess the long-term effects of sequential bilateral cochlear implantation in children on spatial hearing, speech recognition in quiet and in noise and receptive vocabulary. Twenty-four children with bilateral cochlear implants (BiCIs) were tested 5-6 years after sequential bilateral cochlear implantation. These children received their second implant between 2.4 and 8.5 years of age. Speech and language data were also gathered in a matched reference group of 26 children with a unilateral cochlear implant (UCI). Spatial hearing was assessed with a minimum audible angle (MAA) task with different stimulus types to gain global insight into the effective use of interaural level difference (ILD) and interaural timing difference (ITD) cues. In the long-term, children still showed improvements in spatial acuity. Spatial acuity was highest for ILD cues compared to ITD cues. For speech recognition in quiet and noise, and receptive vocabulary, children with BiCIs had significant higher scores than children with a UCI. Results also indicate that attending a mainstream school has a significant positive effect on speech recognition and receptive vocabulary compared to attending a school for the deaf. Despite of a period of unilateral deafness, children with BiCIs, participating in mainstream education obtained age-appropriate language scores.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2015 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2014.10.030