The effect of working memory capacity on language performance in children with cochlear implants.
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2015-08-24
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en
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Objectives: This report provides results for a small sample of cochlear implant (CI) users tested on both simple and complex working memory (WM) tasks with different presentation formats, to examine the WM skills of CI children more closely. As verbal WM capacity is a suspected source of variability in language outcomes of CI children, this study also examined which of four different types of WM tasks was the best predictor of language performance.
Design: The study included 19 CI children between 4 and 8 years old. Outcome measures included performance on digit span forward, digit span backward, a complex Listening Recall task, the Schlichting nonword repetition task, the de Bree nonword repetition task, and two conventional language measures that examined passive vocabulary (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test) and school performance (CITO). Test scores were related to language measures to examine the relationship between WM and language outcomes. Multiple regression analyses were used to look for the best predictor of (poorer) language performance of CI children.
Results: Results showed that nonword repetition tasks were most difficult for CI children, followed by the digit span forward task. The CI children performed well on both the digit span backward task and the listening recall task. The Peabody and CITO language scores showed skewed distributions, with relatively large proportions of CI children scoring age-appropriately on both tests. Correlations revealed that only the scores on the Schlichting nonword repetition task were significantly correlated with scores on the Peabody task, while none of the WM tasks were correlated with the CITO scores. The Schlichting scores accounted for a small, non-significant proportion of variance in Peabody scores. Digit span forward scores accounted for an even smaller, non-significant proportion of variance in CITO scores.
Conclusion: For the current participant group, only nonword repetition tasks and the digit span forward task suggest that working memory capacity of CI children is smaller than in healthy controls. The CI children performed well on the listening recall task and digit span backward task. Nonword repetition seems most promising as a predictor of language performance of CI children.
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