Meta-analytic findings on lower reading skills in children with cochlear implants

Abstract

This meta-analysis study aims to quantify the group differences in reading skills between children with cochlear implants and their hearing peers and between children with cochlear implants and children with hearing aids. Of the 5,642 articles screened, 47 articles met predetermined inclusion criteria. The robust variance estimation based meta-analysis models were used to synthesize all the effect sizes. Children with cochlear implants performed significantly worse than their hearing peers for phonological awareness (g = -1.62, p < .001), vocabulary (g = -1.50, p < .001), decoding (g = -1.24, p < .001), and reading comprehension (g = -1.39, p < .001), but not for fluency (g = -.67, p = .054). Children with cochlear implants only scored significantly lower in phonological awareness (g = -.30, p = .028) than children with hearing aids. The only significant moderator was the percentage of unilateral cochlear implant that negatively impact the group difference between children with cochlear implants and their hearing peers. Findings from this study confirm a positive shift in reading outcomes for profoundly deaf children as a consequence of cochlear implantation despite the poor scores in all constructs.