[ comparison study of articulation errors in cochlear implant children before 3 and after 4 years old]

ABSTRACT

Speech is the essential need of the social life. To acquire that, children highly rely on the normal senses and speech full environment. The normal auditory senseis the most important need. Early amplification intervention in children with hearing difficulties is advised. Cochlear implant technology provides an effective help for hearing-impaired children in recent decades. With regards to new and limited implantation services in Iran, the effects of operation age on speech and language of implanted children was not studied yet. The purpose of this study was to compare articulation errors in cochlear implanted children with different operation age. In this crosssectional study, ten cochlear implanted children before three and eleven after four years old were evaluated. The participants were without any anatomical, visual, and intelligence abnormality and 2.5-3 years was passed from their operation. Then, by using Picture Pho-netic Test [PPT], the articulation errors of individuals were extracted and for more evaluation of the er-rors and complete of PPT, we, also used their excited connected speech by presenting pictures. By applica_tion of t-test and using SPSS software, the data was analyzed. Data analysis indicated that, there was meaningful significant difference between substitute errors and whole errors in two gropes but there was not meaningful significant difference between de-stroyed errors in two gropes. The children who undergoing operation after 4 years old had severed articulation disorder than other grope. These issues indicated that the earlier operation of children will lead to improve the speech skills and reduced the articulation errors