Early speech comprehension in monolingual and multilingual children after bilateral Cochlear implantation

It is necessary to assess early language skills of children in bilingual families after bilateral implantation of cochlear implants (CI) to initiate appropriate care. The standardization group of the german Language Acquisition Test for Two-Years-Old Children (SETK 2) identified no significant differences in the comparison of the mean value of monolingual versus bilingual children, presumed, because the test requirements are simple and develop quickly in both languages. Does this also apply to children after early bilateral cochlear implantation? Retrospectively we compared the results for the subtests comprehension of words (V1) and comprehension of sentences (V2) between simultaneously bilaterally cochlear implanted multilingual children (group 1/n=20) and monolingual German children (group 2/n=94). T-value for the 114 children, each without additional disabilities and CI hearing experience greater than 12 months, was determined according to the standardization for the hearing peers. We used The Mann-Whitney test for statistical group comparison. Group 1 showed significantly lower results in word and sentence comprehension than group 2. Compared to the hearing standardization group, the median of group 1 is below average for word comprehension and well below average for sentence comprehension. Group 2 achieves comparable values on average in both tests. While monolingual German children after early bilateral implantation catch up in language comprehension, it is more difficult for children in bilingual families. We continue research to assess the development over time and increase the number of children of group 1. This analysis does not take into account the proportion of German language in the families nor the conditions of early interventions.