2017 Volume 60 Issue 3 Pages 177-183
Numerous studies have shown that receiving cochlear implants in early childhood has positive effects on the language/learning ability in children with severe hearing loss. However, not many studies have been conducted to investigate the correlation between the hearing ability and language/learning ability in children with cochlear implants. The present study was conducted to examine the relationship between hearing ability and the results of evaluation by WISC-IV in children with cochlear implants. Assessment of the children's hearing ability was conducted by sound-field threshold measurements and the children's performance in speech recognition tests, speech discrimination tests and speech discrimination tests in noise. We found no correlation between the full-scale intelligent quotient (FSIQ) and the age at which the children received their cochlear implants. There were significant differences between the verbal comprehension index (VCI) and the perceptual reasoning index (PRI) in three children. Two of these 3 children had lower VCI values as compared to the PRI values; furthermore, their FSIQs were also low. The circumstances and hearing abilities of these two children accounted for their low scores. Our results demonstrated that the circumstances and hearing ability influence the language/learning ability in children with cochlear implants.
