Visuomotor integration ability of pre-lingually deaf children predicts audiological outcome with a cochlear implant: a first report

Abstract

We investigated the predictive relations between pre-implant visuomotor integration ability and subsequent oral speech/language outcomes in prelingually deaf children who use cochlear implants (CIs). Prior to implantation, children were given a task that tested their accuracy in copying geometric forms. Performance on this task predicted speech perception, sentence comprehension, and speech intelligibility outcomes over 3 years of CI use. We conclude that individual differences in visuomotor integration ability are predictive of some audiological outcome measures in deaf children with CIs.

Fig. 1

Mean Performance on PBK (a, b) and CP (c, d) tasks as a function of length of CI use and pre-implant VMI q median split group. Children who had VMI q scores in the upper 50th of our sample show higher performance on these measures than children who scored in the lower 50th percentile on the VMI.

Fig. 2

We divided our sample of children into two groups based a median split for chronological age at the time of VMI testing (4 years 10 months). Each line represents mean performance at a specific interval of CI use and were computed using slopes obtained from the SAS mixed model. Older children show greater effect of VMI q than younger children after 1 year of CI use. However, younger children appear to show greater effect of VMI q after 2 and 3 years of CI use, possibly due to floor effects of the BIT in the youngest children.