Empirical Articles Evaluating Phonological Processing Skills in Children With Prelingual Deafness Who Use Cochlear Implants

This study investigated the phonological processing skills of 29 children with prelingual, profound hearing loss with 4 years of cochlear implant experience. Results were group matched with regard to word-reading ability and mother’s educational level with the performance of 29 hearing children. Results revealed that it is possible to obtain a valid measure of phonological processing (PP) skills in children using CIs. They could complete rhyming tasks and were able to complete sound-based tasks using standard test materials provided by a commercial test distributor. The CI children completed tasks measuring PP, but there were performance differences between the CI users and the hearing children. The process of learning phonological awareness (PA) for the children with CIs was characterized by a longer, more pro-tracted learning phase than their counterparts with hearing