Investigationof early literacy skills in pre-school children with cochlear implants

Aim:Reading and writing skills are among the basic skills required for school and social life. Early literacy is defined as the prerequisite skills for reading, which are expected to be acquired from the time of birth to the start of school. In this study, it was aimed to compare the early literacy skills of children with cochlear implants(CI) attending kindergarten and / or special education center with early literacy skills of children with normal development (ND). Materials and Methods:A total of 40 children aged 5-6 years (60-72 months) who applied to Ege University Otorhinolaryngology Department and continued their kindergarten and / or special education were included.The study group (20 children) was followed-up after the cochlear implant surgery in the Audiology Clinic of the Ege University Hospital Otorhinolaryngology Department, and the control group consisted of (20 children) who had normal hearing test results.In order to evaluate the early literacy skills of the experimental and control groups, Turkish validity and reliability of the test was performed by Kargın, Ergül and Güldenoğlu and EROT (Test of Early Literacy, TEL) test was conducted. EROT test consists of of receptive-expressive language, general naming, knowledge of function knowledge of alphabet, phonological awareness and listening comprehension. Results:20 girls, 20 boys, 40 children in total participated in the study.The ages of the participants ranged from 5 to 6 years.The mean age of the group with cochlear implant was ± 66.70 and the mean age of the children with normal development was ± 65.45 months.When the EROT test results were compared, a statistically significant difference was found in vocabulary knowledge, alphabet knowledge, listening comprehension subtests and EROT total scores. When the use of unilateral and bilateral cochlear implants is compared according to the results of EROT subtests, a significant difference is observed in the listening comprehension. There was no significant difference between the age of CI surgery and EROT subtests. Gender was not found to be significantly correlated with EROT subtests for both groups. However, the level of mother education and the EROT subtest results of the group were found to be statistically related to the vocabulary and comprehension skills. In ND group, there was a significant correlation between mother education level and vocabulary knowledge. The statistical relationship between the age of diagnosis of hearing loss and the EROT subtests was not significant. It is seen that there is a meaningful relationbetween the duration of use of CI and the sub-tests of alphabet knowledge and listening comprehension. Conclusion:In this study, 75% of the CI children included in the study were in need of support in their early literacy skills.However, no significant difference was found between CI group and their normal-hearing peers in phonological awareness' sub-skills (rhyme awareness, matching the first voice of the word, matching the last voice of the word, resolve the sentences into its vocabulary, and excluding the last voice of the words).It is seen that normal children are more successful than CI users in resolving the word into its syllables, combining syllables, excluding the first voice of the word, alphabet knowledge and listening comprehension skills. It is seen that the children who use bilateral CI are more successful in comprehension of listening. Key Words:Early Literacy, early diagnosis of hearing loss, early cochlear implantation, bilateral cochlear implant, TEL.