APPLICATION OF THE DIARY OF EARLY LANGUAGE (DI-EL®) IN MONITORING LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT IN INFANTS USING COCHLEAR IMPLANTS AND HEARING AIDS

Cowan RSC (1, 5), Nott P (1, 2), Brown M (3), Wigglesworth G (4).

(1) The HEARing CRC, Melbourne, Australia; (2) Advisory Council for Children with Impaired Hearing, Melbourne, Australia; (3) The Department of Early Learning, University of Melbourne, Australia; (4) The Department of Linguistics, University of Melbourne, Australia; (5) The Department of Otolaryngology, University of Melbourne, Australia.

Objectives: The advent of universal newborn screening has resulted in significant number of infants receiving cochlear implants during the first six to twelve months of life.  The evaluation of implant performance, as well as pre-implant speech benefits from use of hearing aid, is challenging in such young children who have not as yet developed language.  Analysis of pre-verbal behaviours can be effective, but is time-consuming and requires skilled clinicians.  The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a novel technique for assessing emerging language in children using cochlear implants or hearing aids.

Materials and Method: The effectiveness and validity of the Diary of Early Language (Di-EL), a technique in which parents collected data about their child’s first 100 single words was measured by determining whether it could be implemented by parents and whether it provided information about early implant use that was not available from other tests.  Validity of the Di-EL was determined from two perspectives.  First, the level of agreement between the lexical data obtained from each participant’s 100-word Di-EL and the lexical data obtained from the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development inventory (CDI) was determined.  Second, the correlation between raw scores obtained on the Di-EL, the CDI and the Rossetti Infant Toddler Language Scale was computed.  Results indicated the Di-EL to be an effective and valid tool for collecting lexical data in young children using cochlear implants.  It provided “on-line” information about lexical acquisition not available from other tools and parents reported it to be a valuable educational tool.  Further support for the Di-EL technique was found in a subsequent study which evaluated the language of two groups, one including normally hearing children, and a second group of children with hearing loss.

Results: The Diary of Early Language was easily completed by all parents of all children in the study.  Results showed that the time period for acquisition of all lexical targets was longer for the children with hearing loss as compared to their normal hearing peers.  The patterns of acquisition were found to be similar, although specific differences in lexical content were noted between the two groups.

Discussion & Conclusion: The Diary of Early Language is an effective tool for monitoring the early language performance of children using cochlear implants or hearing aids.

E-mail: r.cowan@unimelb.edu.au