Articulation skills in Turkish speaking children with cochlear implant.
OBJECTIVE
The benefits of using cochlear implant (CI) on speech perception and production have been documented. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of age of cochlear implantation performed and length of auditory experience with CI on the development of articulation skills in prelingual children with CI.


METHODS
For this purpose, 14 children with CI were administered through the standardized articulation test named AAT (Ankara Articulation Test). In order to evaluate the development of articulation skills, AAT was applied to each child with CI at the first and the fourth years of CI. The test group was selected among those congenitally hearing impaired children who had used hearing aids bilaterally before the age of one and a half, and received intervention after fitting hearing aids. The test group was divided into two subgroups: Group 1 consisted of the children implanted at and below the age of 3 and Group 2 consisted of the children implanted after the age of 3. Evaluations of articulation skills between groups and within groups were performed in the first and fourth years of implantation. In the study, nonparametric statistics have been used to compare the test scores. Mann-Whitney U-test and Wilcoxon test have been used in the comparisons made between groups and within groups, respectively.


RESULTS
While there has not been observed any statistically significant difference between the first year articulation skills of children with CI at and below the age of three and children with CI above the age of 3, for the fourth year this difference has been found to be statistically significant.


CONCLUSIONS
The results demonstrate the importance of the early application of CI and length of auditory experience with CI in the development of articulation skills.
Sevinc
Sebnem
S
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Section of Audiology and Speech Pathology, Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine, 06100 Ankara, Turkey. sevsevinc7@hotmail.com
Ozcebe
Esra
E
Atas
Ahmet
A
Buyukozturk
Sener
S
D000367:Age Factors; D002675:Child, Preschool; D019929:Cochlear Implantation / Q000379:methods*; D003054:Cochlear Implants; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006319:Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D008297:Male; D019986:Persons with Hearing Disabilities / Q000534:rehabilitation; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013062:Speech Articulation Tests / Q000379:methods*; D013065:Speech Intelligibility; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013068:Speech Production Measurement / Q000379:methods; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014421:Turkey; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology