[Young children's use of communication functions before and after cochlear implants].
This paper describes the communication functions of five young children with cochlear implants in order to study the influence of these children's early intentional communication on their individual communication skills after cochlear implantation. Video recordings of each of the five participants in unstructured free play interaction with their, caregivers, before cochlear implantation and twelve and eighteen months after cochlear implantation, were used to identify the type and occurrence of their communication functions over time. The Communicative Intention Inventory (Coggins & Carpenter, 1981) was used to classify the communicative behaviour of the participants according to the types of communication functions that were used. Results of the study show that the type and occurrence of the communication functions differed before and after cochlear implantation and demonstrated the participants' increased ability to participate in conversation. Individual differences amongst the participants in their use of informative and heuristic communication functions could possibly account for interclient variability in the rate of verbal communication development after cochlear implantation. The results are seen as meaningful in clinical decision-making regarding the suitability of young children under the age of three with a profound hearing loss for cochlear implantation and their therapeutic management. The results also contribute to the identification of an objective protocol for the evaluation of the early communication of young children with a profound hearing loss who are in a prelinguistic stage of language development.
Kaltenbrünn
Inge
I
Departement Kommunikasiepatologie, Universiteit van Pretoria.
Louw
Brenda
B
Hugo
René
R
D002675:Child, Preschool; D003054:Cochlear Implants; D003142:Communication; D005260:Female; D034381:Hearing Loss / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007804:Language Development; D008297:Male; D014705:Verbal Behavior; D014741:Video Recording