Phonological Processes in Persian Children with Cochlear Implantation and Normal Hearing in Shiraz

  Natural hearing is essential for the acquisition of a phonemic system in any language. Children with hearing impairment have inappropriate or defective phoneme system. Even after healing of the hearing loss by cochlear implantation, an aspect of this problem remains that needs improvement. The present study was conducted to compare the phonological processes between Persian children with cochlear implantation and normal hearing children. The current cross-sectional study was performed on 28 children with cochlear implantation and 25 hearing 2-8 year-old children in Shiraz. The sample of the speech was obtained using the names of 106 images and then each phonological process was analyzed. Among phonological processes, reduplication, labialization, and glottal stopping (p=0/000) were seen only in cochlear implantation children. In hearing children, the phonological processes disappeared at the age of seven, but in cochlear implantation children, it disappeared after eight years of age. In hearing children (p=0/008) and in those with cochlear implantation (p=0/029), there was an inverse relationship between age and mean phonological process. According to the results, phonological processes in children with cochlear implantation disappeared later compared with hearing children and the frequency of phonological processes in cochlear implant children was more than that of the normal hearing group, which indicates a delay and divergence in their phonological development which is related to the relationship between the length of the growth process and hearing age. Phonological processes are reduced with the increasing age in both groups of hearing children and those with cochlear implantation.