Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T06:13:26.808Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sources of variability in language development of children with cochlear implants: age at implantation, parental language, and early features of children's language construction*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 November 2015

GISELA SZAGUN  and
SATYAM A. SCHRAMM
GISELA SZAGUN*
Affiliation:
Institut für Psychologie, Carl-von-Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Germany
SATYAM A. SCHRAMM
Affiliation:
Institut für Sonderpädagogik, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany
*
Address for correspondence: Dr Gisela Szagun, Institut für Psychologie, Fakultät VI, Medizin und Gesundheitswissenschaften, Carl-von-Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Postfach 2503, 26111 Oldenburg, Germany. e-mail: gisela.szagun@googlemail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to analyze the relative influence of age at implantation, parental expansions, and child language internal factors on grammatical progress in children with cochlear implants (CI). Data analyses used two longitudinal corpora of spontaneous speech samples, one with twenty-two and one with twenty-six children, implanted between 0;6 and 3;10. Analyses were performed on the combined and separate samples. Regression analyses indicate that early child MLU is the strongest predictor of child MLU two and two-and-a-half years later, followed by parental expansions and age at implantation. Associations between earliest MLU gains and MLU two years later point to stability of individual differences. Early type and token frequencies of determiners predict MLU two years later more strongly than early frequency of lexical words. We conclude that features of CI children's very early language have considerable predictive value for later language outcomes.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 43 , Issue 3: Age Effects in Child Language Acquisition , May 2016 , pp. 505 - 536
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

[*]

This research was funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Science Foundation) grants no. Sz 41/5-1, 2 and no. Sz 41/11-1, 2 to the first author. We are most grateful to the children and their parents who so willingly participated in this study. Mohsen Haj Bagheri, Melanie Franik, Tanja Hampf, Sonja Arnhold-Kerri, Elfrun Klauke, Stefanie Kraft, Nina Sondag, Claudia Steinbrink, Barbara Stumper, and Tim Oesterlau helped with data collection, transcription, and analysis. Special thanks go to Bodo Bertram, who provided the facilities and support for our data collection at Cochlear Implant Centrum Wilhelm Hirte, Hannover, Germany.

References

REFERENCES

Bates, E., Dale, P. S. & Thal, D. (1995). Individual differences and their implications for theories of language development. In Fletcher, P. & MacWhinney, B. (eds), The handbook of child language, 96–152. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bates, E. & Goodman, J. (1999). On the emergence of language from the lexicon. In MacWhinney, B. (ed.), The emergence of language, 29–79. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Bertram, B. & Pad, D. (1995). Importance of auditory–verbal education and parents’ participation after cochlear implantation of very young children. Annals of Otology, Rhinology, and Laryngology 166, 97–100.Google ScholarPubMed
Bierer, J., Faulkner, K. & Tremblay, K. (2011). Identifying cochlear implant channels with poor electrode-neuron interfaces: electrically evoked auditory brain stem responses measured with the partial tripolar configuration. Ear & Hearing 32(4), 436–444.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brown, R. (1973). A first language: the early stages. London: George Allen & Unwin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cardin, V., Orfanidou, E., Rönnberg, J., Capek, C., Rudner, M. & Woll, B. (2013). Dissociating cognitive and sensory neural plasticity in human superior temporal cortex. Nature Communications 4,1473. doi:10.1038/ncomms2463.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Connor, C., Hieber, S., Arts, H. & Zwolan, T. (2000). Speech, vocabulary, and the education of children using cochlear implants: oral or total communication. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 43, 1185–204.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cruz, A., Quittner, L., Marker, C. & DesJardin, J. (2013). Identification of effective strategies to promote language in deaf children with cochlear implants. Child Development 84, 543–59.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dale, P., Price, T., Bishop, D. & Plomin, R. (2003). Outcomes of early language delay: predicting persistent and transient difficulties at 3 and 4 years. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 45, 544–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, K., Lillo-Martin, D. & Pichler, D. (2014). Spoken English language development in native signing children with cochlear implants. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 19(2), 238–250.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Duchesne, L., Sutton, A. & Bergeron, F. (2009). Language achievement in children who received cochlear implants between 1 and 2 years of age: group trends and individual patterns. Journal of Deaf Studies and Education 14, 465–85.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Farrar, M. (1990). Discourse and the acquisition of grammatical morphemes. Journal of Child Language 17, 607–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Feldman, H., Dale, P., Campbell, T., Colborn, D., Kurs-Lasky, M., Rockette, H. & Paradise, J. (2005). Concurrent and predictive validity of parent reports of child language at ages 2 and 3 years. Child Development 76, 856–68.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fenson, L., Dale, P., Reznick, J. S., Bates, E., Thal, D. & Pethick, S. (1994). Variability in early communicative development. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 59.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fenson, L., Marchman, V., Thal, D., Dale, P., Reznick, J. S. & Bates, E. (2007). MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories: user's guide and technical manual, 2nd ed.Baltimore, MD: Brookes Publishing.Google Scholar
Gallaway, C. & Woll, B. (1994). Interaction and childhood deafness. In Gallaway, C. & Richards, C. (eds), Input and interaction in language acquisition, 197–218. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geers, A., Moog, J., Biedenstein, J., Brenner, C. & Hayes, H. (2009). Spoken language scores of children using cochlear implants compared to hearing age-mates at school entry. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 14, 371–85.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Geers, A. & Nicholas, J. (2013). Enduring advantages of early cochlear implantation for spoken language development. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 56, 643–53.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Geers, A., Nicholas, G. & Moog, J. (2007). Estimating the influence of cochlear implantation on language development in children. Audiological Medicine 5, 262–73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Giezen, M. (2011). Speech and sign perception in deaf children with cochlear implants. Utrecht: LOT.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hassanzadeh, S. (2012). Outcomes of cochlear implantation in deaf children of deaf parents: comparative study. Journal of Laryngology & Otology 126, 989–94.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hoff, E. (2003). The specificity of environmental influence: socioeconomic status affects early vocabulary development via maternal speech. Child Development 74, 1368–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hoff-Ginsberg, E. (1985). Some contributions of mothers’ speech to their children's syntactic growth. Journal of Child Language 12, 367–85.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Holt, R. & Svirsky, M. (2008). An exploratory look at pediatric cochlear implantation: Is earliest always best? Ear and Hearing 29, 492–511.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, J. E. & Newport, E. (1989). Critical period effects in second language learning: the influence of maturational state on the acquisition of English as a second language. Cognitive Psychology 21, 60–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Knudsen, E. (2004). Sensitive periods in the development of the brain and behavior. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 16, 1412–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leigh, J., Dettman, S., Dowell, R. & Briggs, R. (2013). Communication development in children who receive a cochlear implant by 12 months of age. Otology & Neurotology 34, 443–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Le Normand, M., Moreno-Torres, I., Parisse, C. & Dellatolas, G. (2013). How do children acquire early grammar and build multiword utterances? A corpus study of French children aged 2 to 4. Child Development 84, 647–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lesinski-Schiedat, A., Illg, A., Heermann, R., Bertram, B. & Lenarz, T. (2004). Paediatric cochlear implantation in the first and in the second year of life: a comparative study. Cochlear Implants International 5(4), 146–59.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lyness, C., Woll, B., Campbell, R. & Cardin, V. (2013). How does visual language affect crossmodal plasticity and cochlear implant success? Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 37(10), 2621–30.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
MacWhinney, B. (2000). The CHILDES Project: tools for analyzing talk, 3rd ed.Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Mayberry, R. (2009). Early language acquisition and adult language ability: what sign language reveals about the critical period for language learning. In Marshark, M. & Spencer, P. (eds), Oxford handbook of deaf studies, language, and education, Vol. 2, 281–91. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mayberry, R., Chen, J., Witcher, P. & Klein, D. (2011). Age of acquisition effects on the functional organization of language in the adult brain. Brain and Language 87, 369–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mills, A. E. (1985). The acquisition of German. In Slobin, D. (ed.), The cross-linguistic study of language acquisition, 141–254. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Neville, H. J. & Bavelier, D. (2002). Specificity and plasticity in neurocognitive development in humans. In Johnson, M., Munakata, Y. & Gilmore, R. (eds), Brain development and cognition, 2nd ed., 251–71. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Nicholas, J. & Geers, A. (2007). Will they catch up? The role of age at cochlear implantation in the spoken language development of children with severe to profound hearing loss. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 50, 1048–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ninio, A. (2006). Language and the learning curve: a new theory of syntactic development. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Niparko, J., Tobey, E., Thal, D., Eisenberg, L., Wang, N., Quittner, A. & Fink, N. (2010). Spoken language development in children following cochlear implantation. Journal of the American Medical Association 303, 1498–506.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Peterson, N., Pisoni, D. & Miyamoto, R. (2010). Cochlear implants and spoken language processing abilities: review and assessment of the literature. Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience 28, 237–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pine, J. & Lieven, E. (1997). Slot and frame patterns and the development of the determiner category. Applied Psycholinguistics 18, 123–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plunkett, K. & Elman, J. (1998). Exercises in rethinking innateness: a handbook for connectionist simulations. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Quittner, L., Cruz, I., Barker, D., Tobey, E., Eisenberg, L. & Niparko, J. (2013). Effects of maternal sensitivity and cognitive linguistic stimulation on cochlear implant users’ language development over four years. Journal of Pediatrics 162, 343–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Richards, B. (1994). Child-directed speech and influences on language acquisition: methodology and interpretation. In Gallaway, C. & Richards, B. (eds), Input and interaction in language acquisition, 74–106. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rüter, M. (2009). Einfluss von Expansionen und Imitationen auf den frühen Grammatikerwerb von normal hörenden Kindern und Kindern mit Cochleaimplantat [Influence of expansions and imitations on early grammatical development in children with normal hearing and children with cochlear implant]. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Universität Oldenburg.Google Scholar
Rüter, M. (2011). Einfluss von Expansionen auf den Grammatikerwerb von Kindern mit Cochleaimplantat [Influence of expansions on the development of grammar in children with cochlear implants]. HNO 59, 360–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rutter, M., Pickels, A., Murray, R. & Eaves, L. (2001). Testing hypotheses on specific environmental causal effects on behaviour. Psychological Bulletin 127, 291–324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saxton, M., Backley, P. & Gallaway, C. (2005). Negative input for grammatical errors: effects after a lag of 12 weeks. Journal of Child Language 32, 643–72.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Snijders, T., Tellegen, P. J., Winkel, M., Laros, J. & Wijnberg-Williams, B. (1996). SON-R 2½–7 Snijders-Oomen Non-Verbaler Intelligenztest [SON-R 2½–7 Snijders-Oomen non-verbal intelligence test]. Frankfurt: Swets & Zeitlinger.Google Scholar
Svirsky, M., Teoh, S. & Neuburger, H. (2004). Development of language and speech perception in congenitally profoundly deaf children as a function of age at cochlear implantation. Audiology & Neuro-Otology 9, 224–33.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Szagun, G. (2001). Language acquisition in young German-speaking children with cochlear implants: individual differences and implications for conceptions of a ‘sensitive phase’. Audiology & Neuro-Otology 6, 288–97.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Szagun, G. (2004). Learning by ear: on the acquisition of case and gender marking by German-speaking children with cochlear implants and with normal hearing. Journal of Child Language 31, 1–30.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Szagun, G. & Stumper, B. (2012). Age or experience? The influence of age at implantation, social and linguistic environment on language development in children with cochlear implants. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 55, 1640–54.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Szagun, G., Stumper, B., Sondag, N. & Franik, M. (2007). The acquisition of gender marking by young German-speaking children: evidence for learning guided by phonological regularities. Journal of Child Language 34, 445–71.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tobey, E., Thal, D., Niparko, J., Eisenberg, L., Quittner, L. & Wang, N. (2013). Influence of implantation age on school-age language performance in pediatric cochlear implant users. International Journal of Audiology 52, 219–29.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tomasello, M. (2000). Do young children have adult syntactic competence? Cognition 74, 209–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomblin, B., Barker, B. & Hubbs, S. (2007). Developmental constraints on language development in children with cochlear implants. International Journal of Audiology 46, 512–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tomblin, B., Barker, B., Spencer, L., Zhang, X. & Gantz, B. (2005). The effect of age at cochlear implant at initial stimulation on expressive language growth in infants and toddlers. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 48, 853–67.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
van Geert, P. (1994). Dynamic systems of development: change between complexity and chaos. London: Harvester/Wheatsheaf.Google Scholar
Yoshinago-Itano, C., Baca, R. & Sedey, A. (2010). Describing the trajectory of language development in the presence of severe to profound hearing loss: a closer look at children with cochlear implants versus hearing aids. Otology & Neurotology 31(8), 1268–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar