An examination of the communicative behaviour of mothers and children following the child's cochlear implantation

Kerry-Anne Hoad, University of Melbourne

Abstract

It has been suggested that some elements of maternal speech and language input to hearing impaired children may reflect the mother's depressed expectations of her child's communicative ability and may not facilitate the child's later language development. Cochlear implantation aims to improve the child's ability to hear and interpret speech and language as well as environmental sounds. The parents are aware of, and share in, this aim. Cochlear implantation may have the potential to affect the mother's expectations of her child's communicative ability and this may in turn have the potential to affect the mother's communicative behaviour. The present study examined the communicative behaviour of eight young cochlear implanted children, (aged 1.0 - 4.11 years) and their mothers, both before and within three months after the child's cochlear implantation. Communicative behaviours examined were turn taking behaviour, complexity of maternal language and amount of maternal speech directed to the child. No statistically significant post-implant change was found in maternal or child communicative behaviour. However, correlational results suggest a post implant relationship between maternal offers and child responses and child offers and maternal MLU. Also, although not statistically significant, it was found that mothers tended to speak more to their children after the child's cochlear implantation. Therefore, some trends towards change in maternal communicative behaviour appeared to be emerging within three months of the child's cochlear implantation.