Classroom performance of children with cochlear implants in mainstream education.

Full Abstract

OBJECTIVES:
We compared classroom performance of children with a cochlear implant (CI) with that of their normal-hearing peers in mainstream education.

METHODS:
Thirty-two CI children in mainstream education, congenitally or prelingually deaf, participated in this study, as did 37 hearing classmates. Their teachers filled out 2 questionnaires:
the Assessment of Mainstream Performance (AMP) and the Screening Instrument for Targeting Educational Risk (SIFTER). A high Fletcher index and open-set speech perception scores were obtained.

RESULTS:
The children with CIs scored above average on the AMP and sufficiently well in all but one area (communication) of the SIFTER questionnaire. Class rankings did not differ significantly between the CI students and their normal-hearing peers. Overall, the normal-hearing group outperformed the CI group. The classroom performance of CI children correlated negatively with duration of deafness and age at implantation. All longitudinal audiological data of the CI children showed improvement in open-set speech recognition.

CONCLUSIONS:
Although the results are encouraging, the CI group scored significantly less well than their normal-hearing peers on most questionnaire domains of both the AMP and the SIFTER. The most important variables for the outcome in this study were age at implantation and duration of deafness.

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Author information

Author/s: Damen, Godelieve W J A (GW); van den Oever-Goltstein, Marilène H L (MH); Langereis, Margreet C (MC); Chute, Patricia M (PM); Mylanus, Emmanuel A M (EA);

Affiliation: Dept of Otorhinolaryngology, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center, Philips van Leydenlaan 15, PO Box 9101, 6500 HB, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article

Journal: The Annals of otology, rhinology, and laryngology (Ann Otol Rhinol Laryngol), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Jul; vol 115 (issue 7) : pp 542-52

Dates: Created 2006/08/11; Completed 2006/08/24; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 16900809, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Child
Child, Preschool
Cochlear Implants
Deafness - psychology; rehabilitation
Educational Status
Female

Hearing Impaired Persons - rehabilitation
Humans
Mainstreaming (Education)
Male
Questionnaires
Speech Perception - physiology

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