Socio-Emotional Development of Children with Cochlear Implant: A Systematic Review

Background: Attaining socio-emotional competence is challenging for children with hearing impairment. There is wide recognition of children with cochlear implant (CI) indicating significant improvement in their speech and language abilities, however many factors may restrict their chance of having reciprocal social interactions. A significant improvement in speech and language does not automatically affirm the quality of social interactions. This present observation on social-emotional development addressed a more current representative population of children with hearing loss who have benefitted from cochlear implantation.

Methods: The research conducted a systematic review of selected articles from Scopus and PubMed databases, retrieved through three search-process keywords, namely socio-emotional, children and CI. The inclusion criteria only included journal articles published in English with empirical data from the year 2010-2019. The initial search had identified 189 potential abstracts and after removal of duplicates, only 38 eligible studies met the inclusion criteria.

Results: Among 38 studies reviewed, 19 studies showed comparable socio-emotional skills with peers in social interaction, empathy, emotion theory of mind and comprehension skills. Conversely, the other 19 studies presented underprivileged results in socio-emotional functioning mainly in identifying facial expression, regulating emotion and emotional cues in the auditory domain.

Conclusion: This review concluded that the socio-emotional development among children with CI, both at preschool-age and school-age, was not justified due to the heterogeneity in studies across measurement and small sample size. Also, the conclusion recommended extensive cross-referencing, mixed-mode research design, detailed distinguishing of socio-emotional functioning and identification of diverse groups of the population with impaired hearing as an approach to provide empirical evidence on socio-emotional functioning among children with CI in the future.