A Case Study - Spain

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loml

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Abstract

This paper describes early language development in a deaf Spanish child fitted with a cochlear implant (CI) when she was 1;6 years old. The girl had been exposed to Cued Speech (CS) since that age. The main aim of the research was to identify potential areas of slow language development as well
as the potential benefit of CI and CS. At the beginning of this research the child was 2;6 years (she had been using the CI for 12 months). Adult–child 30-minute sessions were videotaped every week for 1 year (13–24 months of CI use), and transcribed according to CHAT norms. Measures of phonemic inventory, intelligibility, lexicon, and grammar development were obtained. Part of the data were compared with data from two normally hearing (NH) children with the same mean length of utterance (MLU). In order to confirm trends observed during these 12 months of observation, an extra set of data was obtained in the next 3 months (25–27 months of CI use). Results in the initial 12 month period (13–24 months of CI use) showed irregular language development in the deaf child. The development of her phonemic inventory and lexicon progressed at a rate that was similar to, or faster than, that of NH children. However, the slow acquisition of articles and also the slow development of MLU suggested that the child might have problems with grammar. Data from the next 3 months (25–27 months of CI use) confirmed this trend. Results are discussed in relation to similar studies in other languages. Potential benefits of CS are also discussed.


Conclusion

Based on the findings from this study, the authors would like to make some points regarding the role of language habilitation for CI children. In the last 15 years, many researchers and professionals have correctly emphasized the important benefits of CI. Such emphasis may make some parents and even language therapists complacent regarding the role of language training in the post-operative habilitation programme of their child. That is, they may assume that the CI will do all the hard work, particularly since the use of the implant has such a positive impact on things such as child attention, phonology, intelligibility, or vocabulary acquisition—areas of development which are most apparent for parents of pre-school children. However, problems such as agreement errors or slow development of MLU might not attract the parents’ or even the therapists’ attention until it is too late for them to ever develop normally. Further research in this area is thus required to provide language therapists and parents with realistic descriptions of the problems faced by the new deaf population. Furthermore, professionals should provide parents with advice based on realistic descriptions of the advantages and limitations of CI.
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Moreno-Torres, Ignacio and Torres, Santiago(2008)'From 1-word to 2-words with cochlear implant and cued speech: A case study',Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics,22:7,491 — 508
 
I've never heard of CS being used with CI users. How common is this loml?
 
Hear Again said:
I've never heard of CS being used with CI users. How common is this loml?
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Not common. If it were, they would have had more participants available to do research instead of having to rely on a singlular case study.
 
I've only heard loml mention it. I don't know anything about cued speech but if it helps kids make better sense of what they are hearing, then I don't think it's a bad thing. I just wouldn't want it to replace ASL.
 
jillio said:
Not common. If it were, they would have had more participants available to do research instead of having to rely on a singlular case study.
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That's what I thought. I've done quite a bit of research about CIs and this is the first time I've heard of CS being used in conjunction with CIs.
 
Just because something is not common doesn't neccessarily mean it's no good. Take the opticon. It was so rarely used that it went out of busniss. There just so few blind and deafblind who got trained with it and besides it wasn't important for hearing blind who could use Kurtzile reading machines instead. Plus the cost of it all and training on top of that. I wonder if they would be available if someone had funded them like they do with a CI.

(In case anyone is wondering an Opticon was a machine that turned print into tactile print so the blind could read).
 
dreama said:
Just because something is not common doesn't neccessarily mean it's no good. Take the opticon. It was so rarely used that it went out of busniss. There just so few blind and deafblind who got trained with it and besides it wasn't important for hearing blind who could use Kurtzile reading machines instead. Plus the cost of it all and training on top of that. I wonder if they would be available if someone had funded them like they do with a CI.

(In case anyone is wondering an Opticon was a machine that turned print into tactile print so the blind could read).
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I never said CS was bad. All I said was that it isn't commonly used.
 
dreama said:
Just because something is not common doesn't neccessarily mean it's no good. Take the opticon. It was so rarely used that it went out of busniss. There just so few blind and deafblind who got trained with it and besides it wasn't important for hearing blind who could use Kurtzile reading machines instead. Plus the cost of it all and training on top of that. I wonder if they would be available if someone had funded them like they do with a CI.

(In case anyone is wondering an Opticon was a machine that turned print into tactile print so the blind could read).
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When the Opticon was still being made, the Kurzweil reading machine was very expensive -- far more expensive than most blind people could afford.

I was trained on the Opticon in 9th grade and am sorry it is no longer being produced.
 
Hear Again said:
When the Opticon was still being made, the Kurzweil reading machine was very expensive -- far more expensive than most blind people could afford.

I was trained on the Opticon in 9th grade and am sorry it is no longer being produced.
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Me too. I think the reading machine was also very big and bulky but I've heard they made portable ones now.
 
dreama said:
Me too. I think the reading machine was also very big and bulky but I've heard they made portable ones now.
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Yes, they were very large and bulky.

My first reading machine was the Arkenstone Open Book. I've had it since 1991 and it continues to work perfectly after 18 years.

I also have a software version of Open Book on my computer.
 
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