Assessment of musical appreciation in children with Cochlear i̇mplant

A cochlear implant is a hearing aid designed to improve speech perception and production of people with hearing loss. Evaluation of cochlear implant performance and inclusion of users in an appropriate training program is crucial. The main purpose of this study is to assessment musical appreciation in children with cochlear implants and to compare the relationship between musical appreciation and language development. In our study, 26 children with cochlear implant users as research group and 26 children with normal hearing as control group a total of 52 between the ages of 6 and 9 children were included in the study. "Turkish version of "Test of Language Development Primary Fourth edition (TOLD-P4)" was used to assess language development and "Montreal Emotion Identification Test (MEI)" was used to assess musical appreciation. In the evaluation criteria, index and combined performance scores of all sub-tests for TODİL and accuracy percentage in all conditions for MEI were determined. As a result of the study, the percentage of musical appreciation accuracy and TODIL all subtest index and combined performance scores of the research group were significantly lower than the control group in all conditions. The accuracy rate of cochlear implant users in happy melodies was higher than sad melodies. There was a significant relationship between musical appreciation and listening skills performance score of language development. Our results showed that evaluation of cochlear implant performance would be beneficial in evaluation of musical perception and musical appreciation as well as speech and language development along with other general development areas such as gross motor, fine motor, sensory integration, and cognitive status. In post-implantation education programs, it is recommended that education programs that provide specific development to musical perception and musical appreciation should be integrated with general education programs. Key Words: Cochlear Implant, School-aged Language Development, Musical Appreciation, Children, TOLD-P4, MEİ