Speech, Language, and Reading Skills After Early Cochlear Implantation
Bibliographic record
Abstract
ObjectiveTo examine whether age at cochlear implantation or duration of implant use is associated with speech, language, and reading skills exhibited at age 8 to 9 years in children who underwent implantation by age 5 years.DesignPerformance outcomes in speech perception, speech production, language, and reading were examined in terms of the age at which children first received a cochlear implant (2, 3, or 4 years), the age they received an updated (Spectra) processor, and the duration of use of an implant and an updated processor.SettingData collection was conducted at summer research camps held over 4 consecutive years to maximize the number of children available at a specific age (8-9 years). Children were tested individually by experienced examiners, and their parents and therapists provided background and educational history information.ParticipantsA total of 181 children from 33 different states and 5 Canadian provinces who received a cochlear implant by age 5 years were tested. A subsample of 133 children with performance IQ scores of 80 or greater and onset of deafness at birth were selected for the age-at-implantation analysis. Another subsample of 39 children with deafness acquired by age 3 years was also examined.Outcome MeasuresA battery of tests of speech perception, speech production, language, and reading was administered to each child and reduced to a single factor score for each skill.ResultsCorrelation coefficients between age at implantation and duration of use did not reach significance for any of the outcome skills measured. Age at which the updated speech processor (Spectra) was fitted was significantly related to speech production outcome (earlier use of an updated processor was associated with greater speech intelligibility) but not to any other skill area. However, more of the children who underwent implantation at age 2 years (43%) achieved combined speech and language skills commensurate with their age-matched peers with normal hearing than did children who underwent implantation at age 4 years (16%). Furthermore, normal speech and language skills were documented in 80% of children who lost hearing after birth and who underwent implantation within a year of onset of deafness.ConclusionsFor children who receive a cochlear implant between the ages of 2 and 4 years, early cochlear implantation does not ensure better speech perception, speech production, language, or reading skills. However, greater speech and language proficiency may be expected from children who exhibit normal hearing for even a brief period after birth and receive a cochlear implant shortly after losing their hearing. Further research examining the benefits of cochlear implantation before age 2 years will help families and clinicians better understand the time-sensitive nature of the decision to conduct cochlear implant surgery.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Direct model labels (unvalidated)
Per-model category and study-design labels from the labeling rounds. They are machine output, unvalidated, and the disagreement between models ships as data. No study design here is MEDLINE-validated yet.
| Model arm | Categories | Study design | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| gemma | no category Domain: not available · Genre: Commentary About the Canadian research system: no · About a Canadian topic: no | Observational | low |
| gpt | no category Domain: not available · Genre: Empirical About the Canadian research system: no · About a Canadian topic: no | Other design | low |
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedLabeled directly by 2 models reading the full record.
The models disagree on parts of this classification; every voice is preserved in the section at the end of the page.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".