Morphosyntactic and lexical skills in pediatric cochlear implant recipients and their typically developing peers

The cochlear implant revolutionized the experience of developing spoken language in children with profound hearing loss, providing at least some proficiency in spoken language. The communicative option, total (combines aural, manual, and oral modalities) or oral (combines only aural and oral modalities), adopted by pediatric cochlear implant recipients, has been identified by literature as influencing the achievements of their spoken language. Moreover, spoken language development may diverge across language subsystems (i.e., lexical and morphosyntactic). Objectives: The present study aims to verify the influence of the communicative option on the development of spoken language in children using cochlear implants and to understand the lexical and morphosyntactic trajectory in this atypical population, comparing the results with their normal hearing peers. Methods: This longitudinal study involves three groups: 12 cochlear-implanted children encompass the Experimental Group, and 24 normal-hearing children constitute the two Control Groups. Control Group 1 comprises 12 typical development children paired by hearing age with children of the Experimental Group. Control Group 2 includes 12 typical development children matched by chronological age with children with cochlear implants from the Experimental Group. All children were assessed twice through a formal language test that comprised lexical and morphosyntactic tasks. Results: The results revealed that the communicative option did not influence the results in spoken language. Furthermore, lexical development tends to follow their normal-hearing peers, but morphosyntactic development differs significantly from the results of their normal-hearing peers. Discussion: This study does not confirm that one communicative option is more valid than the other when the aim is to enhance spoken language, at least in the first years of cochlear implant use. Additionally, the discrepancy across lexical and morphosyntactic development revealed differences possibly heightened by the auditory deprivation they were subjected to in the first year(s) of life before cochlear implant activation.