Speech and language development in cognitively delayed children with cochlear implants

Objective: The primary goals of this investigation were to examine the speech and language develop-ment of deaf children with cochlear implants and mild cognitive delay and to compare their gains with those of children with cochlear implants who do not have this additional impairment. Design: We retrospectively examined the speech and language development of 69 children with pre-lingual deafness. The experimental group consisted of 19 children with cognitive delays and no other disabilities (mean age at implantation 38months). The control group consisted of 50 children who did not have cognitive delays or any other identified disability. The control group was stratified by pri-mary communication mode: half used total commu