ABSTRACT
@#Speech and language skills are among the crucial components in determining cochlear implant habilitation outcomes. The purpose of this study was to investigate speech and language skills of Malay cochlear implant children using a developmental scale questionnaire and to identify the demographic factors that contribute to their performance. This study involved 26 children recruited from the National Cochlear Implant Program under the Malaysian Ministry of Health with chronological ages between 33 to 99 months (mean=72, SD=18.9), implant ages between 18 to 71 months (mean=40, SD=13.5) and hearing ages between 13 to 48 months (mean=30, SD=10.5). The instrument used was The Integrated Scale of Development-Malay version 2 (ISD-Mv2). The questionnaires were given to the parents or caregivers followed with by a phone call interview later. Results from the study showed that only 9 subjects (35%) were able score on the ISD-Mv2 equally or higher than their hearing age. From the six components in the ISD-Mv2, cognitive was scored the highest with 96.79% meanwhile expressive language was the lowest with 76.21%. Pearson correlation test revealed strong positive correlation between audition-receptive language (r=0.554, p<0.05) and cognitive–social communication/ pragmatic (r= 0.625, p<0.05). Speech and language performance of children with demographic factors did not show significant differences. The findings suggests that majority of the Malay cochlear implant children demonstrated delayed speech and language performance as compared to normal hearing children.