Investigation of the relation of functional hearing behavior of preschool children with cochlear implant to semantics, morphology, and syntax

Following the fitting of the implant, it is important to follow the child's auditory perception, speech, and language development. It is often not possible to evaluate children in clinical settings and the tests used may not provide sufficient information about the functional hearing skills of children in daily life. Therefore, the use of functional hearing scales in addition to clinical tests will provide complementary information about the child's language development and functional hearing performance. The main aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between semantic, morphology, and syntax of preschool cochlear implant users children and to determine how functional hearing skills and language development are affected by demographic and environmental variables. In our study, 48 cochlear implant users (24 girls, 24 boys) without any additional disability aged between 3 years and 5 years and 11 months were included. The Turkish Early Language Development Test was applied to the participants, Functioning after the Pediatric Cochlear Implantation scale which assesses the daily functional hearing skills of the children and demographic information form was completed together with family. When the data were analyzed according to hypotheses, it was found that there was a significant relationship between language development and functional hearing ability. It was concluded that the duration of implant use, auditory rehabilitation training time, going to kindergarten affect language development and functional hearing ability. It has been concluded that Functioning after Pediatric Cochlear Implantation scale is an appropriate scale for early listening development and language assessment after cochlear implant surgery, and when used in conjunction with other tests, it will provide complementary information about language development and functional hearing development, and the use of similar scales are important. Key Words: Cochlear implant, TELD-3, functional hearing, language development