The First Class: Educational Outcomes and Achievement Test Results from Students Who Grew Up Wearing Cochlear Implants

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The First Class Educational Outcomes and
Achievement Test Results from Students Who Grew
Up Wearing Cochlear Implants

• Linda J. Spencer, MA CCC-sp
• Iowa Cochlear Implant Clinical Research Center
• Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck
  Surgery at The University of Iowa
•  

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Acknowledgements

• Bruce J. Gantz, MD
• J. Bruce Tomblin, Ph.D
• UI Speech-Language Team Brittan Barker M.A.,
  Sandie Bass Ringdahl, Ph.D
• UI Cochlear Implant Team
• Participants and Families
• Funding by
• Research grant 2 P50 DC00242 from the National
  Institutes on Deafness and Other Communication
  Disorders, National Institutes of Health
• Grant RR00059 from the General Clinical Research
  Centers Program, NCRR, National Institutes of
  Health
• The Iowa Lions Sight and Hearing Foundation

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Background of Study

• First pediatric implant patient underwent surgery
  in 1987.
• What has happened to the first cohort of children
  implanted?
• Educational and achievement measures provide us
  with a sense of what has happened to this cohort.

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Participants

• No concomitant identified disabilities
• Surgery occurred between 1987 and 1995
• All had reached 10th grade or were gt16 yrs
• 26 Pediatric Cochlear Implant Users (attrition
  12)
• Average of 9 yrs of CI experience
• Ave age at hook up 5 yrs 11 mos
• All had Nucleus 22 Device

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Participants (continued)

• 16/23 were old enough to participate in
  education/vocational outcome study
• All 23 participants completed reading achievement
  testing 14/23 competed additional achievement
  testing
• 7/23 reported that after ave 7 years of
  consistent CI use, they began to wear their CIs
  only during school

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Measures

• Educational and/or Vocational Information (n16)
• Paragraph Comprehension Scores on Woodcock
  Reading Mastery Test (n23)
• Portions of Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement
  (n14)
• Parents Educational/Vocational Status
• CID sentence test scores AVE 85 correct (sd 24)

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ResultsEducational/Vocational Outcomes

• 16 Participants have reached age 18 or more
• 12/16 (75) of the 18 year olds are attending or
  accepted to post-high school institutions
• 7 Universities
• 5 Community Colleges
• 2 Homemakers
• 2 Unknown

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ResultsReading and Achievement Tests
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CI Users
Test Norms
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Subtest Standard Scores
Subtest
SD
Ave
Word Identification 97 15
Passage Comprehension 99 12
Calculation (prelim n8) 100 18
Dictation (spelling, punct.) 109 20
Writing Sample 125 29
Social Studies 99 15
Science 102 12
Humanities 98 9
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Conclusions

• This first cohort of cochlear implant users are
  high achievers academically with a high rate of
  post high school placement
• Standardized Achievement testing results reveal
  that they are competitive with their hearing
  peers
• It will be interesting to follow this group for
  eventual Vocational Placement
• We can predict subsequent cohorts will do as well
  or better than this group, as current age of
  implantation decreases