www.deliveringevidence.inhealth.org/?p=8464 -
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Last Visited: 1/31/2009
"The development of speech and language by children that have a cochlear implant is incredibly variable," said Laura Dilley, an assistant professor of psychology and communication disorders at BGSU.
"Some children are able to perform in clinical tests that are close to their peers, but it's only a few and most are very far behind," she said.
The sounds from cochlear implants are "massively distorted," so while adults who lose their hearing later in life can do pretty well with them, because they already have language skills, for young children it is a lot different, Ms. Dilley said.
The quality of mothers' speech to hearing babies is "incredibly important to how infants develop language," Ms. Dilley said, and this research investigates if that is the same for children with hearing impairments.
The research is funded with a nearly $2 million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.
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Ms. Dilley's part of the project is studying the moms' speech.
She is investigating if mothers use more of the traditional baby talk with hearing children because they get responses and interaction from the baby, such as giggles and smiles.
Some research suggests that when mothers learn of a hearing impairment, they speak differently to the child, such as being more repetitive and using a more controlled voice, Ms. Dilley said.
Mothers might not realize it or think about how that could affect the way a child learns language.
J. Devin McAuley, an associate professor of psychology who is married to Ms. Dilley, also is involved in the project and is responsible for some of the technical aspects and the data analysis.
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