Hearing plays a key role in the development and control of speech production. In children with prelingual profound hearing loss, auditory deprivation may affect articulation and acoustic precision of speech sounds. Although cochlear implantation improves auditory perception, its impact on consonant production remains an area of ongoing research. MATERIAL AND
✦ The floor
Discussion
Signed responses from readers of the wire.
Review findings when counseling families of prelingually deaf children on cochlear implant speech outcomes; details on effect sizes and age-at-implantation factors should be checked in the full text before modifying practice.
Consonant production data from cochlear implant users informs pediatric audiological habilitation goals and helps set realistic expectations for families and speech-language pathology teams.
- 01Assesses consonant production accuracy in prelingually profoundly deaf children with cochlear implants.
- 02Prelingual profound hearing loss means children had no usable hearing before language acquisition.
- 03Published in Acta Otorrinolaringológica Española (2026).
- 04Findings may inform speech therapy targets post-implantation.
- 05Full-text access needed to evaluate sample size, methodology, and clinical effect sizes.
Cochlear implants support consonant production development in children with prelingual profound hearing loss.
studypartially supported- PMID
- 42815567
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.otoeng.2026.512395.
- Journal
- Acta Otorrinolaringológica Española
- Publication type
- research_article
- Evidence level
- 4
- Population
- Children with prelingual profound hearing loss fitted with cochlear implants
- Intervention
- Cochlear implantation
Primary outcomes
Consonant production accuracy; Speech intelligibility outcomes post-implantation