Predictive Factors of Language Development in Persian-speaking Children Using Cochlear Implants: A Pilot Study

Background: This study aimed to investigate some child- and environmentdependent factors in a retrospective method to find a prediction model for the spoken language development of children with hearing loss (HL) after cochlear implantation (CI). Methods: The research reported here was conducted as a cross-sectional pilot study. The sample size was 18 Persian 5-to-7-year-old children with HL using CI (6 girls and 12 boys) who were recruited via consecutive sampling methods from Soroush Rehabilitation Center in Shiraz, Iran. The studied independent variables were categorized into child-related variables and parental variables. At the first step, the participants were divided into two groups, good language ability, and poor language ability, based on the results of Sentence Repetition Test (SRT). The correlation between the independent variables and SRT scores of the groups were compared in two stages. Results: Regarding the development of spoken language in two groups of Persian-speaking preschool children using the cochlear implants with good and poor language development, IQ, duration of watching TV, duration of playing with the father, education status of the mother, education status of father, and economic status of the family had a significant correlation with language development of these children. Conclusion: According to this study’s findings, the child’s IQ, the duration of watching TV during the day, the duration of playing with the father during the day, the level of education of the mother, the level of education of the father, and the economic level of the family may be considered the predictive factors in the language development of cochlear implant children during the preschool years.