Listening comprehension of school-age children with cochlear implants: a story of perception and language

OBJECTIVE: Listening comprehension is important for oral communication, but little is known about it in children using cochlear implants (CIs). Hence, we explored discourse-level listening comprehension in CI users and their typical hearing (TH) peers. DESIGN AND STUDY SAMPLE: Two studies are presented, utilising different text types and assessments of speech perception, language, and working memory as explanatory variables. Eighteen Hebrew speaking CI users and 27 TH children participated in Study 1 that explored narrative texts. Twenty Palestinian-Arabic speaking CI users and 30 TH children participated in Study 2 that explored informative texts. RESULTS: In Study 1, the two groups had similar narrative comprehension. However, CI using children in Study 2 had poorer informative-text comprehension than their TH peers. Stepwise linear regression models suggested language predicted the comprehension of narrative text of both groups in Study 1, whereas in Study 2, speech perception predicted listening comprehension in the TH group only. Working memory was not a significant predictor in either study. CONCLUSION: Children using CIs vary in their listening comprehension skills. Language abilities may influence their understanding of narrative texts. Further research is needed to understand how speech perception is related to the comprehension of both narrative and informative texts.