Music Experience of prelingually deaf children wearing cochlear implants

Although children with cochlear implants participate in a number of musical activites, little is known about their musical exposition and activities. We adapted the MUMU questionnaire for adults for kids and cover musical experience and exposures in 18 questions. There is a version for ci users and normal hearing subjects. We collected the data of 102 Ci users and 29 normal hearing subjects. The data was analysed with the Chi square test in SPSS. The average age of the CI users was 7.3 (SD 3.9) yrs and 5.5 (SD 3.1) yrs for normal hearing children. The average implant experience was 3.7 (SD 2.7) yrs. 16% of the patients were bilaterally implanted, 84% unilaterally. Distribution of implants was 69% Combi 40/40+/Pulsar; 30% Nucleus 22/24; 1% ABC. 13 CI kids had additional handicaps. Families of hearing impaired rate role music plays in their live less important than those of the normal hearing children, however not significantly so. The overall exposure of music is the same in both groups. However, children with ci are less actively engaged in musical activities. Although cochlear implanted prelingually deaf children are involved in musical activities, they do not develop a spontaneous approach to music to the extent their normal hearing peers do. Families with cochlear implanted children should be encouraged to participate more in musical activities as this is supportive for speech development also in normal hearing subjects