Word acquisition in children with cochlear implants

PURPOSE:to analyze word acquisition in early oral language development of a group of children with cochlear implants.METHODS:this consisted on a clinical, prospective and longitudinal study. Five mothers of children with cochlear implants participated. The mothers reported the words that were spontaneously produced by their children. The Language Development Survey adapted to Brazilian Portuguese was administered once a month, totaling six moments per child. The paired t-test was used on the longitudinal data analysis.RESULTS:the mean number of words spontaneously produced by the group of children gradually increased from the first to the sixth month: 38 to 58.8 words. There were significant differences in the number of words produced on Moment 1 and Moment 5 (p = 0.016) and between Moment 1 and Moment 6 (p = 0.010). The categories with the greatest number of words produced by children were other, people, modifiers and actions. The categories with the greatest increase were modifiers, body parts and other.CONCLUSIONS:the group of children with cochlear implants showed a gradual increase in the number of words spontaneously (mainly other, modifiers, people and actions) produced over a period of six months, being significant after the fifth month of Speech-Language therapy. The number of words produced increased with higher significance with longer intervention periods. It is suggested that Speech-Language Pathologists apply the formulary on a six-month interval as this is an ideal period to evidence lexical acquisition.

研究目的：分析一组人工耳蜗植入（cochlear implants）儿童的早期口语发育过程中的词汇习得情况。研究方法：本研究为临床前瞻性纵向研究，共招募5名人工耳蜗植入儿童的母亲参与。由母亲报告其子女自发产出的词汇；每月施测一次经巴西葡萄牙语改编的语言发展调查表（Language Development Survey），每名儿童共计完成6次测评。纵向数据分析采用配对t检验。研究结果：该组儿童自发产出的词汇平均数量从第1至第6个月逐步提升，从38个增至58.8个。第1测评时点与第5测评时点的词汇产出数量存在显著统计学差异（p=0.016），第1测评时点与第6测评时点亦存在显著统计学差异（p=0.010）。儿童产出词汇数量最多的类别为其他、人物、修饰词与动作；增幅最大的词汇类别为修饰词、身体部位与其他。结论：该人工耳蜗植入儿童组在6个月周期内，自发产出的词汇（主要为其他、修饰词、人物与动作类别）数量呈逐步增长趋势，且在言语治疗（Speech-Language therapy）满5个月后差异具有统计学意义；随着干预周期延长，词汇产出数量的提升显著性也随之升高。本研究提示，言语语言病理学家（Speech-Language Pathologists）可采用每6个月一次的施测方案，因为该周期是验证词汇习得效果的理想时长。