Multicenter Study Investigating Foreign Language Acquisition at School in Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults With Uni- or Bilateral Cochlear Implants in the Swiss German Population.

Beeres-Scheenstra, Renske J; Azar, Alireza Rahimi; Heinzmann, Sybille; Stieger, Christof; Kompis, Martin; Caversaccio, Marco; Bodmer, Daniel; Huber, Alexander; Lehnick, Dirk; Candreia, Claudia; Linder, Thomas E (2020). Multicenter Study Investigating Foreign Language Acquisition at School in Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults With Uni- or Bilateral Cochlear Implants in the Swiss German Population. Otology & neurotology, 41(5), e580-e587. Wolters Kluwer 10.1097/MAO.0000000000002607

Text Multicenter_Study_Investigating_Foreign_Language.20.pdf - Published Version Restricted to registered users only Available under License Publisher holds Copyright. Download (328kB) | Request a copy

OBJECTIVES

Evaluation of foreign language acquisition at school in cochlear implant patients.

STUDY DESIGN

Multicenter cohort study.

SETTING

CI centers.

PATIENTS

One hundred twenty-five CI users (10-18 yr) in the German-speaking part of Switzerland were enrolled. Demographic data were obtained by means of written questionnaires. German-speaking children with mainstream foreign language tuition (English and/or French) were enrolled for further testing. The control group of normal-hearing individuals was matched on age, class, and number of foreign language lessons attended.

RESULTS

Overall, 100 questionnaires were returned. The 12 CI users without foreign language learning attended special schools. CI users who attended foreign language classes had better German speech comprehension compared with those without foreign language tuition (89 versus 51%; p < 0.05). Thirty-one CI users of different grades were further tested. All (10/10) CI 6th graders attained the school objectives for both English reading and listening skills. French performance at 6th grade for reading was 3/7 and for listening only 1/7. There were 13 matched normal-hearing pairs for English and 10 for French. The total scores were on average 7% higher, with a statistical significance for English reading (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

Almost 90% of CI children in Switzerland learn foreign language(s) at school. All the tested patients reached the current school objectives for English reading. The success rate for French was lower, especially regarding listening tasks. The 13 matched pairs with normal-hearing did not score substantially better.

Interest & Impact

Downloads

1 since deposited on 19 Jan 2021
0 in the past 12 months

Citations

5 Citations in Web of Science ®
6 Citations in Scopus

Search

in Google Scholar™

Services

Actions (login required)

Edit item

Actions (login required)

Edit item