Variables influencing executive functioning in preschool hearing-impaired children implanted within 24 months of age: an observational cohort study

Executive Functions (EFs) are fundamental to every aspect of life. The present study was implemented to evaluate factors influencing their development in a group of preschools orally educated profoundly deaf children of hearing parents, who received CI within two years of age. Methods Twenty-five preschool CI children were tested using the Battery for Assessment of Executive Functions (BAFE) to assess their flexibility, inhibition and non-verbal visuo-spatial working memory skills. The percentage of children performing in normal range was reported for each of the EF subtests. Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis were performed to assess differences between gender, listening mode and degree of parents’ education subgroups. The Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficient was calculated to investigate the relationship between EF scores audiological and linguistic variables. Results Percentages ranging from 76% to 92% of the children reached adequate EF scores at BAFE. Significant relations (p<0.05) were found between EFs and early intervention, listening and linguistic skills. Further, CI children from families with higher education level performed better at the response shifting, inhibitory control and attention flexibility tasks. Economic income correlated significantly with flexibility and inhibitory skills. Females performed better than males only in the attention flexibility task. Conclusions The present study is one of the first to focus attention on the development of EFs in preschool CI children, providing an initial understanding of the characteristics of EFs at the age when these skills emerge. Clinical practice must pay increasing attention to these aspects which are becoming the new emerging challenge of rehabilitation programs.