Intellectual assessment of deaf children and differences between children with conventional hearing aids and children with cochlear implants

Lacroix, Emilie;Deggouj, Naima;Edwards, Martin
(2013) Royal Belgium Society for ear, nose and throat, head and neck surgery. Annual congress. New frontiers in pediatric ENT — Location: Bruxelles (15.November.2013)

Files

Présentation_SocRoyORL_ELacroix.pdf
  • Closed Access
  • Adobe PDF
  • 1.39 MB
Request a copy

Details

Authors
Abstract
Introduction: In this research presentation, we will present an intellectual assessment of deaf children who consulted our ENT department with a range of difficulties experienced in school. Despite having a satisfactory evolution of their pure tone audiometry, they showed unsatisfactory language development, learning difficulties, or behavioral disorders, and these difficulties motivated neuropsychological evaluation. We propose that the analysis of cognitive profiles presented by deaf child patients provides us with new and important information about the cognitive functioning of children with deafness. Hypothesis: We expected to find that the deaf children that consulted the ENT department would show impairments relative to test norms of hearing children without learning disorders for the evaluations of total Intellectual Quotient (IQ) and the different subscales composing the neuropsychological IQ test. We also tested whether there were differences between children with conventional hearing aids and children with cochlear implants. Experimental Design: We selected from the last seven years of the hospital database, sixty-one deaf child patients with either conventional hearing aids or cochlear implants. All underwent neuropsychological consultation that included intellectual assessment using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children – fourth edition (WISC-IV). Methods: We performed analyses of the standard total index IQ, the four different scales (Verbal Comprehension Index, Perceptual Reasoning Index, Working Memory Index, and Processing Speed Index), and the ten different subtests that make up each of the four scales. We also compared scores between the children that had conventional hearing aids or cochlear implants. The evolution of their pure tone audiometry was also analyzed. Results: In addition to showing the expected difference of the deaf child patients relative to the test norms of the total Intellectual Quotient (IQ), we also found significant scale and subtest differences between children with conventional hearing aids compared to children with cochlear implants Conclusions and perspectives: The neuropsychological evaluation of deaf children provides a specific cognitive profile for patients that can be used to offer the most appropriate care tailored to their profile’s strengths and weaknesses. Given the specific difficulties faced by these children, we propose that more precise cognitive measures are needed to improve the accuracy and reliability of classic "paper and pencil" tests. To meet this need, we propose a new tablet-based testing system that we will develop for this purpose.
Affiliations

Citations

  • APA
  • Chicago
  • FWB

Lacroix, E., Deggouj, N., & Edwards, M. (2013). Intellectual assessment of deaf children and differences between children with conventional hearing aids and children with cochlear implants. Royal Belgium Society for ear, nose and throat, head and neck surgery. Annual congress. New frontiers in pediatric ENT, Bruxelles. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/215733