The production of Wh- questions in a group of Italian cochlear-implanted children

The acquisition of complex syntactic structures is problematic for children with hearing impairment, even for those who use cochlear implants. This study investigates for the first time the production of wh- questions in a group of 8 cochlear-implanted children, in order to compare their performance with that of 8 normal hearing children. Accuracy is lower in the group of cochlear-implanted children than in controls. However, individual performance variability was observed. Some cochlear-implanted children show good competence in Italian and use response strategies found in older children; other children produce ungrammatical sentences and sentences attested in young children's productions, which is evidence of the linguistic delay associated to hearing impairment, even when they are fitted with cochlear implants.