Speech therapy strategies used with children with cochlear implants during a conversation activity

Abstract

Background and objective: The study of speech-language pathologist (SLP) strategies with students with cochlear implants (CI) to promote language development has been scarcely explored, unlike the study of maternal strategies with their children and SLP strategies used with students with language disorders. The objective of this study is to explore the strategies used by SLPs with children with CI during a conversation activity. Materials and method: The sample consists of 7 SLPs interacting with 25 students with CI (13 girls and 12 boys) aged 5 to 7 years. Twelve questions from the conversation subtest of the PADIL protocol were formulated, and the strategies used by the SLP were analysed based on the children's errors and considering the possible influence of auditory age. Results: It is noted that the most frequent SLP strategies were adapted repetition, identical repetition, and semantic aids. These three strategies were used to a greater extent to repair comprehension errors, non-responses, and failures to adhere to the maxim of quantity. Conclusions: This study confirms that SLP use a wide variety of resources to elicit an appropriate response from children with CI and support their participation in conversation. The practical applications of this study highlight the importance of diversifying interaction contexts so that infants can practice their conversational skills in different communicative situations.