Phonological awareness in deaf children who use cochlear implants.

A short-term longitudinal study was conducted to investigate possible benefits of cochlear implant (CI) use on the development of phonological awareness in deaf children. Nineteen CI users were tested on 2 occasions. Two groups of deaf children using hearing aids were tested once: 11 profoundly deaf and 10 severely deaf children. A battery of tests was designed to investigate syllable, rhyme, and phoneme awareness. Syllable awareness in the CI users was equivalent to that of the severely deaf group, and rhyme and phoneme awareness was similar to that of the profoundly deaf children using hearing aids. CI use affords some benefit to the development of phonological awareness. The results from this study indicate that this enhancement is first observable at the syllable level.