Comparing the word definition skill between children with cochlear implant and normal children.

Background:word definition is a linguistic and Meta linguistic skill related to the development of language, academic success and intellectual function. There is a littleresearch in the field of word definition in children with cochlear implant (CI) in Iran. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine and compare the word definition in children with CI with normal children. Methods: In a cross-sectional study, 22 children with CI and 22 normal children aged 6 to 8 years were selected in an available manner to study the word definition using the test of the word definition. The inclusion criteria included being monolingual, congenital impairment, using of the CI device, operatingup to three years of age, the presence of any comorbidityand gettingthe earlyintervention. Exclusion criteria included the lack of cooperation of the examinee. It was used SPSS19 for statistical analysis. average, standard deviation, minimum and maximum scores were calculated. Also, it was used, the Mann-Whitney test to determine the significant differences of the scores of variables. Results: The normal group gained the highest scores in the three functional (p = 0.003) and structural (p = 0.000) aspects and also the totalword definition test (p = 0.000). Conclusion: The weakness of hearing impaired children in vocabulary definition skill demonstrates their semantic and syntactical deficits. There were aligned studies withour results in specific language impairment which are expected to be considered by speech and language pathologists (SLPs) in their interventional planning.