Investigation of the relationship between cognitive skills and reading comprehension skills in children with cochlear implants

In this study, it was aimed to examine the relationship between reading comprehension skills and cognitive skills of school-age children using cochlear implants. The study included 34 volunteer children aged 7-10 years(20 girls, 14 boys), using cochlear implants, having no additional disability, learning to read. They were divided into 4 groups according to age groups: 7 years, 8 years, 9 years and 10 years. The Turkish Early Language Development Test (TEDIL) to assess children's language skills, the Pronunciation Phonetic Test (SST) to assess their pronunciation skills, the Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children-4 version (WISC-4) to assess their cognitive skills, and the to assess their reading skills was applied Aloud Reading and Reading Comprehension Test (SOBAT Participants' receptive and expressive language skills as well as correct reading (rreceptive language= 0.62, p = 0.001; rexpressive language= 0.649, p = 0.001), reading comprehension skills (rreceptive language= 0.638, p = 0.001; rexpressive language= 0.631, p = 0.001) and pronunciation skills and reading speed (r = 0.696, p = 0.001), correct reading (r=0.765, p=0.001), fluent reading (r = 0.718, p = 0.01), A high level of positive correlation was found between comprehension (r=0.723, p=0.001) and reading aloud (r = 0.641, p = 0.001) skills. It was determined that there was a positive moderate correlation between the participants' reading comprehension skills and verbal comprehension (r=0.549, p=0.0), working memory (r = 0.658, p=0.001) and general intelligence score (r = 496, p = 0.004). However, reading comprehension skills and processing speed (r = -0.063, p = 0.472) and perceptual reasoning (r = 0.280, p = 0.156) skills were not found to be related. There was no difference between the groups between the ages of cochlear implantation and starting special education. In order to improve the reading comprehension skills of children using cochlear implants, their language skills and cognitive skills such as working memory and verbal comprehension should be supported.