The effect of Cued Speech on story retelling in late implanted prelingual hearing impaired students

Background and Aim: Cued Speech makes speech perception easier and improves both lip-reading ability and residual hearing usage. The purpose of the present study was to assess the effectiveness of using Cued Speech on story retelling as a rehabilitation tool for late cochlear implanted, prelingual, hearing-impaired students. Methods: This was an experimental study with a pre- and post-test plan. Nine prelingually hearing impaired students were selected from Loghman Cochlear Implant Center. All were late cochlear implanted and were aged between 11 and 16 years and 9 months. The study tool involved a storytelling test. The Persian Cued Speech training program was conducted for eight weeks in sixteen 60 minute sessions. In this study we used a Z-test and t-test for analysis of dependent variable. Results: After the Persian Cued Speech intervention all the narrative’s macrostructural (topic maintenance, event sequencing, main information, (p < 0.01) and microstructural (referencing, p < 0.05 and mean length of utterances, (p < 0.01) items were significantly improved. There were no significant differences in two microstructural items (conjunction cohesion, syntax complexity). Conclusion: The study shows that using Cued Speech for the late cochlear implanted, prelingual, hearing impaired students can improve story retelling abilities and can be used in rehabilitation programs for these groups.