Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Dankook University, College of Medicine, Cheonan, Korea.
Clin Exp Otorhinolaryngol. 2009 Sep;2(3):120-5. doi: 10.3342/ceo.2009.2.3.120. Epub 2009 Sep 23.
The objective of this study was to compare the long-term auditory performance and language skill depending on the age of cochlear implantation in the Korean population. We especially tried to separate the effect of maturation/development from that of the age at implantation.
Eighty-six pre-lingual children with profound hearing loss who underwent a cochlear implantation before the age of six and had been followed for more than 3 yr were included in this study prospectively. Categories of Auditory Performance (CAP) and Korean Picture Vocabulary Test (K-PVT) were serially followed up. In order to separate the age at implantation effect, K-PVT results were readjusted to the child's chronological age in the normal hearing population.
When the CAP and K-PVT scores were directly compared without chronological readjustment, we failed to show a significant difference for improvements according to the age at implantation. Early cochlear implantation was associated with better language development, only when the K-PVT scores were readjusted to percentile scores of their chronological age.
Early cochlear implantation was associated with better language development even within the critical period. This advantage may be recognized only when the effect of the age at implantation is separated from the effect of maturation/development.
本研究旨在比较韩国人群中根据植入年龄的不同，长期听觉表现和语言技能的差异。我们特别试图将成熟/发育的影响与植入年龄的影响分开。
本前瞻性研究纳入了 86 名语前聋、在 6 岁前接受人工耳蜗植入且随访时间超过 3 年的儿童。我们对他们的听觉表现类别（CAP）和韩国图片词汇测试（K-PVT）进行了连续随访。为了将植入年龄的影响分开，我们将 K-PVT 结果调整为正常听力人群中儿童的实际年龄。
如果不进行实际年龄的调整，直接比较 CAP 和 K-PVT 评分，我们未能发现植入年龄与改善之间存在显著差异。只有当 K-PVT 评分调整为实际年龄的百分位分数时，早期耳蜗植入与更好的语言发育相关。
即使在关键期内，早期耳蜗植入也与更好的语言发育相关。只有当将植入年龄的影响与成熟/发育的影响分开时，才能认识到这种优势。
