The effect of pre-operative developmental delays on the speech perception of children with cochlear implants

Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the relationship between developmental delays and speech perception in pre-lingually deafened cochlear implant recipients.

Methods: This study was a retrospective review of patient charts conducted at a tertiary referral center. Thirty-five pre-lingually deafened children underwent multichannel cochlear implantation and habilitation at the Kyoto University Hospital Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. A pre-operative cognitive-adaptive developmental quotient was evaluated using the Kyoto scale of psychological development. Post-operative speech performance was evaluated with speech perception tests two years after cochlear implantation. We computed partial correlation coefficients (controlled for age at the time of implantation and the average pre-operative aided hearing level) between the cognitive-adaptive developmental quotient and speech performance.

Results: A developmental delay in the cognitive-adaptive area was weakly correlated with speech perception (partial correlation coefficients for consonant-vowel syllables and phrases were 0.38 and 0.36, respectively).

Conclusion: A pre-operative developmental delay was only weakly associated with poor post-operative speech perception in pre-lingually deafened cochlear implant recipients.