Fonologiskt arbetsminne hos döva barn med cochleaimplantat : Hur hör de, och hur gör de?

Sammanfattning: Being born deaf, or with a moderate-severe hearing loss, means that linguistic and cognitive abilities might develop with an atypical pattern compared to children with normal hearing. With help from technical hearing devices like cochlear implants and/or hearing aids, combined with early intervention and support from caregivers and other people that interacts with the child, there is a good chance that the he or she will develop a well-functioning spoken language. In this study, the phonological working memory capacity of 22 children with cochlear implants, and a control group of 43 children with normal hearing, was investigated.  The usage of semantic strategies in tasks testing the phonological working memory was also examined. The results showed that the group of children with cochlear implants have a less developed phonological working memory in comparison with the children with normal hearing. Phonological working memory in children with cochlear implants was predicted by expressive vocabulary, which in turn was affected by the parent’s highest level of education. When investigating the retrieval strategies that was used, results indicated that children with cochlear implants used more semantic strategies than the group of hearing children. Higher ages at 1st cochlear implantation correlated with higher degree of semantic strategy use. The results regarding the phonological working memory indicated that the involvement and support from the caregivers were essential for the language and cognitive development. Regarding the usage of semantic strategies, the results indicated that children with cochlear implants used more semantic-related than phonological retrieval strategies when the phonological working memory capacity was investigated.