Academic Outcomes for School-Aged Children With Severe-Profound Hearing Loss and Early Unilateral and Bilateral Cochlear Implants

PURPOSE: This study sought to (a) determine whether academic outcomes for children who received early cochlear implants (CIs) are age appropriate, (b) determine whether bilateral CI use significantly improves academic outcomes, and (c) identify other factors that are predictive of these outcomes. METHOD: Forty-four 8-year-old children with severe-profound hearing loss participated in this study. Their academic development in mathematics, oral language, reading, and written language was assessed using a standardized test of academic achievement. RESULTS: (a) Across all academic areas, the proportion of children in the average or above-average ranges was lower than expected for children with normal hearing. The strongest area of performance was written language, and the weakest was mathematics. (b) Children using bilateral CIs achieved significantly higher scores for oral language, math, and written language, after controlling for predictive factors, than did children using unilateral CIs. Younger ages at second CI predicted the largest improvements. (c) High levels of parental involvement and greater time spent by children reading significantly predicted academic success, although other factors were identified. CONCLUSIONS: Average academic outcomes for these children were below those of children with normal hearing. Having bilateral CIs at younger ages predicted the best outcomes. Family environment was also important to children's academic performance

Serum Methylarginines and Hearing Loss in a Population-based Cohort of Older Adults

OBJECTIVE: Age-related hearing loss is associated with endothelial dysfunction and increased cardiovascular risk, suggesting a vascular etiology. Methylarginines are endogenous nitric oxide synthase inhibitors that cause endothelial dysfunction and increase cardiovascular disease risk. This study is the first to examine the hypothesis that higher serum concentrations of methylarginines are associated with greater hearing loss prevalence. STUDY DESIGN/PATIENTS: Cross-sectional audiometric data on hearing levels, and serum methylarginines were collected from a population-based sample of 630 older community-dwelling adults. RESULTS: Linear regression analysis showed a statistically significant association between higher serum concentrations of asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) and L-arginine and greater degrees of hearing loss for males, particularly over 75 years. Higher body mass index and previous history of stroke were also associated with hearing loss. For females, ADMA concentration was not associated with hearing loss, but higher serum L-arginine concentrations were associated with reduced hearing loss prevalence in older females. Antihypertensive medication use was also associated with reduced hearing loss prevalence. LDL cholesterol and previous myocardial infarction were associated with greater hearing loss. CONCLUSION: This study showed a significant association between serum concentrations of ADMA and hearing loss for males, consistent with the association between endothelial dysfunction and hearing loss. The opposite effect of L-arginine on hearing loss in males versus females might reflect a different role of this precursor toward nitric oxide versus methylated arginines synthesis. These findings are potentially clinically significant if the association between ADMA and hearing loss is causal, as serum methylarginine levels are modifiable through pharmacotherapeutic/lifestyle interventions

Variation in speech perception scores among children with cochlear implants

This is a publisher’s version of an article published in Ear and Hearing 2001. This version is reproduced with permission of Lippincott Wilkins & Williams.OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to identify common factors affecting speech perception scores in children with cochlear implants. DESIGN: Speech perception data for 167 implanted children were collected at two cochlear implant centres in Melbourne and Sydney. The data comprised audition-alone scores on open-set word and sentence tests. Children were selected on the basis that they had a Nucleus 22-electrode cochlear implant. The average age of the children was 5 yr. Information was also collected about 12 factors that may have influenced speech perception scores for each child. Analysis of covariance was used to identify factors that significantly affected speech perception scores. Pearson pairwise correlation coefficients were also calculated for all factors analyzed. RESULTS: The analyses in this study identified factors that accounted for 51%, 34%, and 45% of the variance in phoneme, word and sentence perception scores. Scores decreased by 1.4 to 2.4% per year of profound deafness prior to implantation. Children who normally use oral communication scored significantly higher than children normally using sign or simultaneous oral and sign communication. Children implanted in Sydney scored higher on average than children implanted in Melbourne. CONCLUSIONS: The results show that a significant part of the variation in speech perception scores is systematically related to audiological and environmental factors for each child. The reasons for significant differences between children using different communication modes or from different clinics were not identified

Spoken Language Development in Oral Preschool Children With Permanent Childhood Deafness

This article documented spoken language outcomes for preschool children with hearing loss and examined the relationships between language abilities and characteristics of children such as degree of hearing loss, cognitive abilities, age at entry to early intervention, and parent involvement in children's intervention programs. Participants were evaluated using a combination of the Child Development Inventory, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, and the Preschool Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals depending on their age at the time of assessment. Maternal education, cognitive ability, and family involvement were also measured. Over half of the children who participated in this study had poor language outcomes overall. No significant differences were found in language outcomes on any of the measures for children who were diagnosed early and those diagnosed later. Multiple regression analyses showed that family participation, degree of hearing loss, and cognitive ability significantly predicted language outcomes and together accounted for almost 60% of the variance in scores. This article highlights the importance of family participation in intervention programs to enable children to achieve optimal language outcomes. Further work may clarify the effects of early diagnosis on language outcomes for preschool children.20

Speech perception results for children with implants with different levels of preoperative residual hearing.

OBJECTIVE: Many reports have established that hearing-impaired children using the Nucleus 22-channel cochlear implant may show both significant benefits to lipreading and significant scores on open-set words and sentences using electrical stimulation only. These findings have raised questions about whether severely or severely-to-profoundly deaf children should be candidates for cochlear implants. To study this question, postoperative results for implanted children with different levels of preoperative residual hearing were evaluated in terms of speech perception benefits. STUDY DESIGN/SETTING: A retrospective study of the first 117 children, sequentially, to undergo implantation in the Melbourne and Sydney Cochlear Implant Clinics was undertaken. All children had been assessed by and received their implants in a tertiary referral centre. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: To assess aided residual hearing, the children were grouped into four categories of hearing on the basis of their aided residual hearing thresholds measured preoperatively. To assess benefits, the scores of children on standard speech perception tests were reviewed. As different tests were used for children with different ages and language skills, children were grouped into categories according to the level of postoperative speech perception benefit. RESULTS: The results showed that children in the higher categories of aided preoperative residual hearing showed significant scores on open-set word and sentence perception tests using the implant alone. For children in lower categories of aided residual hearing, results were variable within the groups. More than 90% of children with implants with aided residual hearing thresholds in the speech range above 1 kHz achieved open-set understanding of words and sentences. CONCLUSION: While the results of this preliminary study confirm previous findings of differential outcomes for children with different levels of preoperative residual hearing, they suggest that children with severe to profound hearing impairments should be considered for cochlear implantation

Desenvolvimento da linguagem e deficiência auditiva: revisão de literatura

RESUMO: Este estudo tem como objetivo revisar as produções científicas acerca das relações entre desempenho da linguagem e deficiência auditiva, assim como analisar os estudos observacionais sobre a temática. Trata-se de revisão de literatura, no qual foram utilizados os descritores "Hearing Loss", "Child Language", "Perda Auditiva", "Linguagem", "Fonologia" e "Vocabulário" nas bases de dados do Portal Capes, Bireme, Scielo e Pubmed no período de julho a dezembro de 2012. Os critérios de inclusão foram artigos disponíveis em periódicos publicados no período de 2007 a 2012. Foi critério de exclusão não ter como foco principal a aquisição/desenvolvimento da linguagem de crianças e/ou adolescentes portadores de deficiência auditiva. Os estudos analíticos observacionais foram verificados por meio de 22 itens relacionados a informações que deveriam estar presentes no título, resumo, introdução, metodologia, resultados e discussão, recomendados pela iniciativa STROBE (Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology). Foram encontrados 26 artigos, que foram separados em eixos temáticos, sendo linguagem oral, linguagem escrita e leitura e revisão de literatura. Verificou-se que muitos artigos mencionam os benefícios do menor tempo de privação sensorial, bem como do maior tempo de terapia fonoaudiológica e maior uso do Aparelho de Amplificação Sonora Individual ou Implante Coclear). A análise dos dados por meio da iniciativa STROBE aponta que a maioria dos artigos analisados apresentou informações necessárias, principalmente nos itens título e resumo e introdução. As produções científicas estudadas revelam que ainda não há protocolos com padrões de normalidade específicos para indivíduos com deficiência auditiva

Auditory sensory memory and working memory processes in children with normal hearing and cochlear implants.

There can be wide variation in the level of oral/aural language ability that prelingually hearing-impaired children develop after cochlear implantation. Automatic perceptual processing mechanisms have come under increasing scrutiny in attempts to explain this variation. Using mismatch negativity methods, this study explored associations between auditory sensory memory mechanisms and verbal working memory function in children with cochlear implants and a group of hearing controls of similar age. Whilst clear relationships were observed in the hearing children between mismatch activation and working memory measures, this association appeared to be disrupted in the implant children. These findings would fit with the proposal that early auditory deprivation and a degraded auditory signal can cause changes in the processes underpinning the development of oral/aural language skills in prelingually hearing-impaired children with cochlear implants and thus alter their developmental trajectory