Recent article about research at the University of Wisconsin shows significant language progress after two cochlear implants.
During our recent trip to participate in the WI research, we got to meet Christi who is quoted in the article. (see picture below) Very fun to meet the next generation of practitioners who are passionate about serving kids with CIs. In this photo, Lily and Christi were teasing each other about who would win the Nebraska-Wisconsin Football game.
An ongoing study of 45 deaf children who had two cochlear implants finds that their language skills are within the normal range..."It's a huge success to see these children making such strides in language acquisition," says Christi Hess, a Ph.D. student in communicative disorders...Many, after as little as one or two years with the implant, have language scores within the normal range, especially those who got the implant before age two....It's known that implants made at a younger age deliver results more quickly, and that a second implant helps children both locate the source of a sound and understand speech in a noisy room. But until now, it was not clear if the second implant would improve understanding of spoken language. "The most exciting finding is that having two implants does correlate with an improvement in receptive language," says Hess.
Comments