Journal of ENT Care and Otolaryngology Research

Review Article Volume: 2, Issue: 1 Scientific Knowledge

Impact of on Auditory and Speech Perception and Language Development in Prelingual Deaf Children Nazia Begam1 and MD Abu Bashar2* 1Government Medical College, Raigarh, CHATTISGARH, India 2MM Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, MM Deemed University, Mullana, India

1. Abstract simply amplify sound, i.e. make it louder. On the other Profound deafness during childhood affects the normal hand, cochlear implant provides useful sound development of auditory and speech perception, speech information by directly stimulating the surviving production and language skills. Cochlear implants (CIs) auditory nerve fibres in the inner ear (cochlea) [4]. The have revolutionized the scenario of rehabilitation of observation that electrical stimulation of the auditory profoundly deaf individuals. A prelingual deaf is one pathway can create the perception of sound was who is congenitally deaf or whose occurred discovered in 1790 by Alessandro Volta [5]. before speech development. The current review was Cochlear implants enable deaf people to receive and undertaken to assess the impact of cochlear implants process sounds and speech. However, it is important to (CIs) in prelingual deaf children on their hearing and note that these devices do not restore normal hearing. speech perception, speech production and language Sound and speech are allowed to be processed and sent development. to brain by these devices [6]. 2. Keywords: Prelingual deafness; Cochlear implants; Cochlear implants are usually made up of two parts. One Speech perception; Speech production; Language part of the device is surgically inserted into the temporal development bone surrounding the ear. It consists of a receiver- 3. Introduction stimulator, which accepts, decodes and then sends an electrical signal to the brain. The second part of the A prelingual deaf individual is one who is born with cochlear implant is outside the ear cavity. This is made hearing loss or one whose hearing loss occurred before up of a microphone/receiver, a speech processor and an they began to speak [1]. It is estimated to occur in 0.5 to antenna. This part of the device receives the sound, 3 per 1000 live births [2]. Prelingual deafness can lead converts it into an electrical signal and sends it to the to social isolation due to delayed social growth, delayed inside part of the cochlear implant which is implanted and inability to pick up auditory into cochlea, electrical current is then used to stimulate social cues [3]. the remaining auditory nerve fibres [6]. A cochlear implant is a small but complex electronic *Corresponding author: MD Abu Bashar, Assistant Professor of device that helps in hearing. It could be used by people Community Medicine D/71, MM Deemed University, Mullana-133207, who are deaf or hard of hearing. A cochlear implant is Haryana, India, E-mail: [email protected] Received Date: June 21, 2020; Accepted Date: June 26, 2020; entirely different from a hearing aid. Hearing aids Published Date: June 29, 2020 J ENT Care Otolaryngol Res 1 Volume 2 (1): 2020 sensing vibrations through an organ such as ear. The inner ear is fully developed by the time the mother is approximately 20 weeks pregnant and new-borns have fully developed hearing mechanism [12]. The present review is undertaken to assess the impact of cochlear implant surgery on auditory perception, speech

and language development in prelingual deaf children. Figure 1: Component of cochlear implant system. Both children as well as adults can be candidates for Studies on Impact of Cochlear Implants (CIs) on cochlear implants. They may either be born deaf or Auditory and Speech perception, Speech Production and become deaf after learning to speak [7]. However, the Language development ideal candidates with prelingual deafness are those with 4. Impact on Auditory Perception a regular use of hearing aid, preferably with some A number of studies have shown significant increase in residual hearing and who use oral communication [8]. auditory perception abilities after cochlear implantation Researches have shown that children with prelingual in profoundly deaf children [13-15]. Furthermore, CIs deafness can derive considerable benefit from cochlear proved to provide deaf children with auditory access to implants [9]. spoken language, reflected in increasing receptive Speech is the vocalised form of human communication. vocabulary [16-19]. It is constructed upon the syntactic combination of Govaerts et al. [20] evaluated data from six age cohorts lexical and names that are derived from very large implanted up to 6 years of age. They assessed the vocabularies. Each spoken word is designed out of the auditory performance (using the Categories of Auditory phonetic combination of a limited set of vowels and Performance questionnaire) preoperatively and up to 2 consonant sound units. Speech perception refers to the years after cochlear implantation. The CAP scores were processes by which humans are able to interpret and rapidly (within 3 months) normalised in children comprehend the sounds used in different languages implanted before the age of 2 years. Children implanted [10]. later, took longer to achieve scores similar to their Language development is the process by which children normal-hearing peers. Around 25% of children learn to understand and communicate language during implanted after their third birthday could not achieve childhood. From birth up to five years of age, children normal CAP scores within the first 48 months after develop language at a very rapid pace. It may be noted implantation. Furthermore, this outcome was rarely that the stages of language development are common in achieved in children implanted after the age of 4 years. all humans. However, the age and the speed at which a Schauwers et al. [21], investigated the audiological child reaches each milestone of language development outcome of 10 deaf children and found that the earlier greatly vary. Thus, language development in an the implantation took place, the smaller the delay was in individual child must be compared with norms rather comparison with normally hearing children with regard than with other individual children. More than any other to auditory performance as measured by CAP. Those feature of development, language development reflects children implanted in first year of their life exhibited a the growth and maturation of the brain. Receptive normal CAP development as soon as 3 months after language development (the ability to comprehend implantation. language) usually develops faster than expressive 5. Impact on Speech Perception and Production language (the ability to communicate) [11]. Speech perception includes both the perception of a Hearing or audition is the ability to perceive sound by stimulus and its interpretation, the process being

J ENT Care Otolaryngol Res 2 Volume 2 (1): 2020 described through various models and theories. implanted in their third (52% score) and fourth (33%) According to the auditory theory of speech perception, years of life. ordinary auditory processes are sufficient to explain the In another study by Manrique et al. [29], Speech perception of speech [22]. The auditory appearances of perception ability was tested and shown to be correlated acoustic patterns are registered and matched with with age at implantation in their prospective cohort phonetic, categorical labels that already persist in the study. The study was performed to evaluate and compare memory. The motor theory of speech perception is outcomes of 94 children with bilateral profound hearing based on the hypothesis that the intended phonetic impairment who were consecutively implanted with gestures of the speaker construct the basis for phonetic cochlear implants before their second birthday to 36 categories [23]. children implanted between 2-6 years of age. Children Hasenstab & Tobey [24] in their study found the were then followed up for 5-8 years. They concluded that evidence of doubling of speech intelligibility after one- infants implanted before the age of 2 years showed better year use of cochlear implant. Pisonni et al. [25] auditory perception and speech perception test results concluded that children with cochlear implants show than those implanted at a later age. Children implanted better speech and language outcomes after implantation before the age of 2 followed a relatively normal and their performances continue to increase over time. development of language, whereas older children Tomblin et al. [26] also found significant improvement showed a lag of approximately 2 years when compared in speech after cochlear implantation. with the normal baseline. O’Donoghou et al. [27] examined 40 children with 6. Impact on Language Development mean age at implantation of 52 months who were Deaf children show a significant delay in both prelingually deaf and were followed up for 5 years. The vocabulary and grammar when compared to same-age mean 52 number of words per minute perceived hearing children. Normally, a three-year-old is expected increased from 0 before implantation to 44.8 (SD 24.3), be to produce 900-1,000 different words and to use those 5 years after implantation. Repeated-measures ANOVA words to produce sentences that are about 3 to 4 words showed that children significantly improved over time in length and include a subject and a verb [30]. In (p=0.001). Age at implantation was a significant comparison, profoundly deaf children have covariate (p=0.01) and mode of communication was a demonstrated a much lower level of vocabulary and significant between-individuals factor (p=0.04). Early grammar skills [31]. age at intervention and oral communication mode were Lederberg and Spencer [32] highlighted that deaf the most vital determinants of later speech perception in children lack a ‘‘spurt’’ in vocabulary development, young children after cochlear implantation. which is characteristic in normal hearing children”. Holt et al. [28] in a prospective study compared speech In their longitudinal study, Kirk et al. [33] studied the perception of congenitally deaf children who received rate of growth in word recognition and language skills as cochlear implants before the age of 5 years. Five of a function of age at cochlear implantation and whether these children received their implants between 7-12 there are any sensitive periods for cochlear implantation months of age, 27 between 13-24 months of age, 38 before the age of 3 years. They prospectively followed between 25-36 months of age and 23 between 37-48 up 106 pre-lingual deaf children who received their months of age. Speech recognition was better for cochlear implants at either <2 years, between 2 to 4 children implanted early in their life than those years, or at age 5 or older. A battery of speech and implanted later. This was shown by better performance language outcome measures were administered to the in children implanted in their second year of life children before the implantation and six monthly after (average word recognition score = 70%) than those the implantation for minimum 3 years. Data from two J ENT Care Otolaryngol Res 3 Volume 2 (1): 2020 measures of spoken word recognition and from two implanted by 18 months, 30% of those implanted measures of receptive and expressive language were between 19 to 30 months, <10% of those implanted analysed with the length of device use, age at between 31 to 40 months and <5% of those implanted implantation and communication mode as the co- between 41 to 48 months had a spoken language age variates. The study showed significant improvements in within 1 year of their chronologic age. spoken word recognition and receptive and expressive Fukuda et al. [36] reported a case study of a 10-year-old language skills following cochlear implantation. It was congenitally deaf child who received a cochlear implant found that the age equivalent vocabulary scores of at the age of 4 years. Before implantation, his language children who received cochlear implants when they development was delayed by 34 months in comparison were 5 years old were 0.72 to 0.80 relative to their CA with his chronological age. This gap was narrowed to a (chronological age) (i.e., age-equivalent score/CA) after 23-month delay, 2 years after surgery. The child was also 2 years of cochlear implantation. able to use intelligible three-word sentences within 2 Szagun [34] prospectively followed-up twenty-two years of implantation. young German-speaking deaf children implanted with Svirsky et al. [15] in their study compared the speech cochlear implants (mean age at implantation 29 perception and language skills of congenitally deaf months). Language acquisition in terms of progress in children who received cochlear implants in the second grammar and vocabulary of these children was year of life (12 children), third year of life (34 children) compared to that of a group of 22 normal-hearing or fourth year of life (29 children). Analyses showed children over a period of 27 to 36 months. The study close language scores for cochlear implant users to found that patients show improvement after cochlear average values from normal-hearing children as a implant. function of age. The average projected language age for Hammes et al. [35] retrospectively analysed data on 12 children implanted between 12 and 24 months infants with hearing loss who received cochlear (measured in units of language age) was 5.7 months implants before the age of 18 months. These were higher than for children implanted at 25 to 36 months at compared to 13 infants who received their implants the same chronological age. Children implanted after 3 between 19 to 30 months of age, 11 children implanted years of age lagged behind those implanted between 25 between 31 to 40 months and to 11 children who to 36 months by 5.6 months (p<0.05) and those received their implants between 41 to 48 months. implanted at 12-24 months by 10 months (p<0.001). Comparisons based on age at implantation were Similarly, speech perception capacity was correlated performed using spoken language measures. Spoken with age at implantation and children who received language data were reviewed for the children who cochlear implants before their second or third birthday underwent at least 6 months of cochlear implant use to showed better rates of perception than those implanted assess the rate of progress and performance for the after their third birthday. group of children who received their cochlear implants Manrique et al. [28] measured the spoken language of 36 between 9 and 18 months of age. The study indicated children with cochlear implants by using the General that children fitted with cochlear implants at an early Oral Expression scale of the Reynell Developmental age showed improvement in expressive and receptive Language Scales III. It was found that those receiving an language capabilities as well as developed speech and implant by age two years had a normal rate of growth language skills at the same rate as normal hearing though one year delayed whereas children receiving an children. Furthermore, children who had their implants implant between two and six years exhibited a slower inserted at or before the age of 18 months showed the growth rate and a lag of two to three years below best outcome. Analyses revealed that 70% of those achievement levels for hearing age-mates. J ENT Care Otolaryngol Res 4 Volume 2 (1): 2020 Nicholas and Geers [30] examined data from 76 Rajguru SM, Truy E, Gupta C. 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Citation: MD Abu Bashar, Nazia Begam. Impact of Cochlear Implant on Auditory and Speech Perception and Language Development in Prelingual Deaf Children. J ENT Care Otolaryngol Res. 2020; 2: 1003.

Copy Right: © 2020 MD Abu Bashar. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

J ENT Care Otolaryngol Res 7 Volume 2 (1): 2020