Speech Development in Prelingually Deaf Children with Cochlear Implants

Since the early 1980s, cochlear implantation has been an approved method for treating profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss in children. It is widely believed that the use of this device would significantly benefit young deaf children's development of speech and ability to participate in aural-oral communication. However, whereas significant improvement in speech reception and perception skills following implantation has been widely documented, cochlear prostheses as speech production aids have been studied less extensively. The main objective of this article is to review the work conducted on speech produced by prelingually deaf children following cochlear implantation. Cochlear implants and their functioning are described, as are the cognitive, social and clinical factors known to play a role in successful implantation of children. It is concluded that cochlear implantation may speed up speech production to near normal rates, but initial delays are not totally reversible. In addition, the variability in all performance measures is high, and the reasons for good and poor outcomes are only partly understood.