Long term effects of early age atcochlear implantation on metaphor comprehension and executive functions in Swedish teenagers

Introduction: Acochlear implant(CI)is an advanced hearing aidgiving many congenitally deaf children the opportunityto develop spoken language. Early age at cochlear implantation has positive effectson early spoken languageby reducing the period of auditory deprivation. The research regarding long term effects of CI on higher linguistic skills, such as figurative language, is scarce. Metaphor comprehension is a figurative language skill that starts to develop early in childhood and continuously through adolescence.Executive functions are higher cognitive functions that develop in close relationship with linguistic skills. Severalprevious studies have found deficits in the executive functions of children with hearing impairments, including those with CI. The aim of this project, as part of a multidisciplinary follow up program,is to investigatelong term effects of earlyCIon linguisticand cognitive outcome in a Swedish cohort of adolescents. Focuswill beonthe role of age at implantation in the development of executive functions and metaphor comprehension. We are also interested in the possible relationship between development of executive functions and metaphor comprehension.
Methods: Recruitment and data collection is ongoing.The cohort is estimated to be 75individuals aged 12 to 21years, fitted with CI before 30 monthsof age. Bothmultilinguals and monolinguals will be included in the study. There will be a control group with typically hearing individuals matched for age, sex and home language environment. Metaphorcomprehension will be measured using a multiple-choicetaskwith a verbal response.Executive functions will be assessedby task performance (serial recall of nonwords, reading span and trail makingtest) as well as self and parent reportby the BRIEF questionnaire. Linguistic skills(vocabulary and reading) will be assessed using standardized test.
Results: Preliminary results from 10-20 subjects will be shared in the presentation.