The written language of children with cochlear implant

In the era of cochlear implants (CIs) and newborn hearing screening programmes, the oral language skills of deaf children have improved significantly. The literature documents sizable gains in their speech perception and receptive and expressive spoken language. However, the improvements in the area of reading and writing are less remarkable, and reading and writing continue today to be a major challenge for children with CIs. The article discusses the role of two cognitive factors that may contribute to make writing difficult to achieve for children with CIs: poor executive functions and verbal working memory. Recommendations for assessment and intervention are derived from this analysis.