Receptive morphosyntax in children 5 to 8 years of age wearing cochlear implants

Despite the negative impact of receptive morphosyntax difficulties on the language skills necessary for social and academic success, scientifi c literature dealing with the development of this aspect of language in children with cochlear implants is limited, particularly in French. This study pursues the work of Duchesne, Sutton and Bergeron (2009), by analysing receptive morphosyntax in a sub-group of 14 francophone children from 5 to 8 years old having received a cochlear implant at an average age of 1 year and 11 months. The average time of implant use is four years. Participant performances were compared to the normative data of the Carrow- Woolfolk comprehension test (TACL-R; Groupe coopératif en orthophonie pour la région des Laurentides, 1995) for each of the morphology and syntax task items. An error analysis was done based on the grammatical diffi culties found in the test. Results show that children with cochlear implants achieve performances signifi cantly lower than the norm for certain morphosyntaxic structure categories. The lower-scored items do not always correspond to those that are more diffi cult for hearing children. Two performance profi les seem to emerge among the participants: A small group of children fi nds itself within the normal limits or above, while the majority are below the normal threshold.

from the Canadian Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-79952334696&origin=inward&txGid=-9KwX1JqOV6RlEjmvQl6NXB%3a4