Cochlear Implant for Children with Additional Disabilities

Cochlear implantation in children with sensorineural hearing loss and additional disabilities (ADs) may provide an essential means to improve neurocognitive development. Many children with ADs experience improvement in speech perception, speech production, language, and communication. Other benefits not routinely measured by implant programs but valued by parents include improvement in adaptive behavior, psychosocial, emotional, and family relationships and quality of life. Improvement in speech perception and language is often slower than for a typically developing implanted child. Growing evidence also suggests that younger age of implantation enhances language outcome of children with ADs. In addition, for those children unable to develop language, auditory perception often positively impacts quality of life by increasing social engagement and awareness of the environment. Knowledge of the longer timeframe for development of language by parents and professionals is important to ensure consistent implant use and that support services for auditory skill and language development are not prematurely terminated. Improving outcomes of children with ADs is an area ripe for translational research.