Malin Wass

Cognitive and linguistic skills in Swedish children with cochlear implants – measures of accuracy and latency as indicators of development

The purpose of the present study was to examine working memory (WM) capacity, lexical access and phonological skills in 19 children with cochlear implants (CI) (5;7-13;4 years of age) attending grades 0-2, 4, 5 and 6 and to compare their performance with 56 children with normal hearing. Their performance was also studied in relation to demographic factors. The findings indicate that children with CI had visuospatial WM capacities equivalent to the comparison group. They had lower performance levels on most of the other cognitive tests. Significant differences between the groups were not found in all grades and a number of children with CI performed within 1 SD of the mean of their respective grade-matched comparison group on most of the cognitive measures. The differences between the groups were particularly prominent in tasks of phonological WM. The results are discussed with respect to the effects of cochlear implants on cognitive development.

Cognitive development in children with cochlear implants: Relations to reading and communication

The purpose of the present article is to present an overview of a set of studies conducted in our own laboratory on cognitive and communicative development in children with cochlear implants (CI). The results demonstrate that children with CIs perform at significantly lower levels on the majority of the cognitive tasks. The exceptions to this trend are tasks with relatively lower demands on phonological processing. A fairly high proportion of the children can reach a level of reading comprehension that matches hearing children, despite the fact that they have relatively poor phonological skills. General working memory capacity is further correlated with the type of questions asked in a referential communication task. The results are discussed with respect to issues related to education and rehabilitation.

Cognitive development, reading and prosodic skills in children with cochlear implants

This report summarizes some of the results of studies in our laboratory exploring the development of cognitive, reading and prosodic skills in children with cochlear implantation (CI). The children with CI performed at significantly lower levels than the hearing comparison group on the majority of cognitive tests, despite showing levels of nonverbal ability. The differences between children with CI and hearing children were most pronounced on tasks with relatively high phonological processing demands, but they were not limited to phonological processing. Impairment of receptive and productive prosody was also evident in children with CI. Despite these difficulties, 75% of the children with CI reached a level of reading skill comparable to that of hearing children. The results are discussed with respect to compensation strategies in reading.

Picture-elicited written narratives, process and product, in 18 children with cochlear implants

The purpose of the study was to explore the narrative writing of 18 children, ages 11 to 19, with severe and profound hearing impairment who had cochlear implants (CI), compared with the performance of hearing children. Nine of the 18 children had prelingual deafness and 9 children had postlingual deafness. The hearing impairment was progressive in 11 children. The participants thus formed a heterogeneous group, which was split in two ways: according to age at testing and age at implantation. The narratives were collected by means of keystroke logging. The difference between the children with CI and the hearing children was most prominent for two measures: the percentage of pause time (in the group of children older than 13 years) and lexical density. Furthermore, the children implanted after 5 years of age performed more like the hearing children. This group consisted of children with postlingual deafness and also of children who were deafened progressively. Our interpretation is that these children benefited from the early linguistic input. Taking the whole group of participants into consideration, the results reflect linguistic and cognitive processing limitations in complex linguistic tasks like narration for the children with CI in comparison with their hearing peers.

Computer-assisted training of phoneme–grapheme correspondence for children who are deaf and hard of hearing : Effects on phonological processing skills

OBJECTIVE Examine deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) childrens phonological processing skills in relation to a reference group of children with normal hearing (NH) at two baselines pre intervention. Study the effects of computer-assisted phoneme-grapheme correspondence training in the children. Specifically analyze possible effects on DHH childrens phonological processing skills. METHODS The study included 48 children who participated in a computer-assisted intervention study, which focuses on phoneme-grapheme correspondence. Children were 5, 6, and 7 years of age. There were 32 DHH children using cochlear implants (CI) or hearing aids (HA), or both in combination, and 16 children with NH. The study had a quasi-experimental design with three test occasions separated in time by four weeks; baseline 1 and 2 pre intervention, and 3 post intervention. Children performed tasks measuring lexical access, phonological processing, and letter knowledge. All children were asked to practice ten minutes per day at home supported by their parents. RESULTS NH children outperformed DHH children on the majority of tasks. All children improved their accuracy in phoneme-grapheme correspondence and output phonology as a function of the computer-assisted intervention. For the whole group of children, and specifically for children with CI, a lower initial phonological composite score was associated with a larger phonological change between baseline 2 and post intervention. Finally, 18 DHH children, whereof 11 children with CI, showed specific intervention effects on their phonological processing skills, and strong effect sizes for their improved accuracy of phoneme-grapheme correspondence. CONCLUSION For some DHH children phonological processing skills are boosted relatively more by phoneme-grapheme correspondence training. This reflects the reciprocal relationship between phonological change and exposure to and manipulations of letters.

Cognitive Skills and Reading Ability in Children with Cochlear Implants

(2010). Cognitive Skills and Reading Ability in Children with Cochlear Implants. Cochlear Implants International: Vol. 11, Proceedings of the 9th European Symposium on Paediatric Cochlear Implantation, Warsaw, 2009, pp. 395-398.

Development of cognitive and reading skills in deaf children with CIs

Auditory stimulation provided by a cochlear implant (CI) to deaf or severely hearing-impaired children has an impact on their development in most areas (Geers et al., 2008; Lyxell et al., 2008, 2009; Pisoni et al., 2008; Wass, 2009; Wass et al., 2008). This is especially obvious in the cognitive and communicative domains (Pisoni et al., 2008; Wass, 2009). Previous research indicates that deaf children with CIs generally outperform deaf children without CI implants in most cognitive and communicative tasks. Early implantation is also more beneficial for cognitve development than later implantation (Pisoni et al., 2008; Sharma et al., 2005; Tait et al., 2007; Wass, 2009). The purpose of the present article is to present an overview and summary of results from some recent studies carried out in our own laboratory. Focus is on the development of working memory (WM) capacity, phonological, and lexical skills (AskerArnason et al., 2007; Lyxell et al., 2008; Wass, 2009; Wass et al., 2008). These three basic cognitive components were chosen because they are central to development of a number of other fundamental cognitive activities including reading, mental arithmetic, and verbal communication. WM refers to the ability to simultaneously store and process information over a short period of time (12–15 seconds). Previous research has demonstrated that children with CI have shorter verbal memory spans compared to age-matched hearing children (Pisoni, 2008). In our own studies we have attempted to further examine WM by examining different components of the WM system (i.e. the central executive, the visual, and phonological part, cf., Repovs and Baddeley, 2006). Phonological processing skill refers to the ability to identify and manipulate phonological-related material. Phonological skills are highly correlated in hearing children with literacy skills, such as reading and writing. Atypical development is often associated with reading problems. The empirical picture from previous research is very clear. Children with CI perform at a substantially lower level than agematched hearing children. Lexical access refers to speed and accuracy in finding and retrieving verbal labels from long-term memory. Lexical access is a strong predictor of reading and spelling performance in hearing children. Previous research has revealed that deaf children with CI can reach levels of reading comprehension comparable to those of normal hearing children, although not all of them do so (c.f., Geers et al., 2008). Focus in our studies has been on two aspects of reading, comprehension, and decoding of words and non-words.

Cognitive skills in children with Usher syndrome type 1 and cochlear implants

INTRODUCTION Usher syndrome is a genetic condition causing deaf-blindness and is one of the most common causes of syndromic deafness. Individuals with USH1 in Sweden born during the last 15 years have typically received cochlear implants (CI) as treatment for their congenital, profound hearing loss. Recent research in genetics indicates that the cause of deafness in individuals with Usher type 1 (USH1) could be beneficial for the outcome with cochlear implants (CI). This population has not previously been the focus of cognitive research. OBJECTIVE The present study aims to examine the phonological and lexical skills and working memory capacity (WMC) in children with USH1 and CI and to compare their performance with children with NH, children with hearing-impairment using hearing-aids and to children with non-USH1 deafness using CI. The participants were 7 children aged 7-16 years with USH1 and CI. METHODS The participants performed 10 sets of tasks measuring phonological and lexical skills and working memory capacity. CONCLUSIONS The results indicate that children with USH1 and CI as a group in general have a similar level of performance on the cognitive tasks as children with hearing impairment and hearing aids. The group with USH1 and CI has a different performance profile on the tests of working memory, phonological skill and lexical skill than children with non-USH1 deafness using CI, on tasks of phonological working memory and phonological skill.

Paired-Associate Learning Ability Accounts for Unique Variance in Orthographic Learning

ABSTRACT Paired-associate learning is a dynamic measure of the ability to form new links between two items. This study aimed to investigate whether paired-associate learning ability is associated with success in orthographic learning, and if so, whether it accounts for unique variance beyond phonological decoding ability and orthographic knowledge. A group of 63 children ages 8–10 completed an orthographic learning task and three types of paired-associate learning task: visual–visual, visual–verbal, and verbal–verbal. The results showed that both visual–verbal and verbal–verbal (but not visual–visual) paired-associate learning ability were associated with success in learning the spellings of novel words. Moreover, hierarchical regression analyses showed that visual–verbal paired-associate learning predicted orthographic learning even after phonological decoding skill and existing orthographic knowledge had been accounted for. We propose that paired-associate learning ability may be one of the underlying mechanisms of orthographic learning, facilitating the connection between the phonology and orthographic representation of a word.

Hearing and cognitive development in deaf and hearing-impaired children: effects of intervention

Hearing and cognitive development in deaf and hearing-impaired children : effects of intervention