The Skill of Requesting Clarification and Responding to the Request for Clarification in Children with Cochlear Implant

The strategy of conversational repair is one of the most important pragmatic skills, which includes requesting clarification and responding to the request for clarification. In this cross-sectional descriptive-analytical study, the conversational repair skills of 15 children with cochlear implants were compared with 15 language age-matched hearing children TOLD-P:3. The aforementioned skills of subjects were evaluated in the dyadic interactions of the children with cochlear implants and unfamiliar hearing children. For this purpose, the children's conversations were transcribed and coded. The results showed a significant difference between the average number of requests for clarification in the group of children with cochlear implants, and hearing children matched in terms of language age (p < 0.05), but the average number of strategies of responding to the request for clarification in children with cochlear implants was not significantly different from that of the hearing children. Also, children with cochlear implants used the skill of requesting clarification more than the hearing children matched based on the language age, which can indicate that the skill of requesting clarification takes longer to develop, and hearing children, considering their chronological age, are probably not mature enough in their use of this skill. Another possibility could be that children with normal hearing, despite having the same language age as children with cochlear implants, still have more and better access to auditory information due to having normal hearing, and therefore, do not need as many requests of clarification as children with cochlear implants.