Early cochlear implant promotes global development in children with severe-to-profound hearing loss

Background/Objectives: Theprimaryobjective of the present study wastoinvestigate early global development in children after one year of cochlear implant (CI) use. The secondary objective was to investigate the role of variables such as age at CI activation, gender, and parental schooling in early global development in children with a CI. Methods: The study sample included 24 subjects. All children were affected by severe-to-profound congenital bilateral sensorineural hearing loss (HL). The HL was diagnosed between 1 and 23 months of age (median 3 months) and participants underwent cochlear implant activation at 9–25 months (median 14 months). Participants were evaluated before CI surgery and after one year of CI use using the Italian version of the Griffiths III scales. Results: The general developmental quotient remained stable, as did the developmental quotients on scales A, C, D, and E. However, the development quotients on scale B, corresponding to the domain AcademicEditor: AdrienEshraghi Received: 22August2025 Revised: 12September2025 Accepted: 17September2025 Published: 22 September2025 Citation: Falzone, C.; Guerzoni, L.; Ghiselli, S.; Franchomme, L.; Nicastri, M.; Mancini,P.; Fabrizi, E.; Cuda, D. Early Cochlear ImplantPromotes Global DevelopmentinChildrenwith Severe-to-Profound Hearing Loss. Audiol. Res. 2025, 15, 121. https:// doi.org/10.3390/audiolres15050121 Copyright: ©2025bytheauthors. Licensee MDPI,Basel,Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the termsand conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY)license (https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/). of “language and communication,” underwent a significant increase (p value < 0.05). There was astatistically significant negative effect of “age at CI activation” on both DQ at scale B (t − 3.457) and GDQ (t − 42.069). Maternal schooling had a significant positive effect on GDQand DQfor scales A to D (p. value < 0.05). Conclusions: After one year of CI use, a significant improvement in the early global development of children was found in the language and communication domain. The age at CI activation and the level of the mother’s education were found to be related to early global development.