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This analytical cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the production of nouns and adjectives in 62 children between the ages 5 and 7, with 31 children having Cochlear Implants (CIs) and 31 children having Typical Hearing (TH). The study compaired their performance in a picture naming test of nouns and adjectives. Poisson regression models were fitted to compare the responses of both groups of children, and intra-subject differences between responses to the noun and adjective naming tasks were also analyzed. The results showed that both groups of children produced the same number of non-responses of nouns and of adjectives and a higher number of correct productions of nouns than of adjectives. However, children with CIs produced more errors when naming adjectives than when naming nouns, while this difference is not observed in children with TH. The comparative analysis between both groups of children indicates that children with CIs produced a higher proportion of non-responses when naming nouns, but the same proportion as children with TH when naming adjectives. Children with CIs also produced fewer correct nouns and adjectives and more errors than children with TH. Vocabulary expansion and repair of production errors in children with CIs should be targeted by speech-language pathologists in intervention programs., Competing Interests: The autors declare no conflicte of interest., (© 2023 The Author(s).)

Increase in the auditory abilities of children with cochlear implants (CIs) has led to an improvement in naming tasks, although divergent results are still being reported; this strongly suggests that further studies are needed. The study aims to compare the responses in a picture-naming activity between the complete population of children aged 5 to 7 with cochlear implants in Catalonia -Spain- (N = 31), without developmental problems, and a matched sample of 31 children with typical hearing. A picture-naming task was used to assess their lexical naming abilities. The results show that children with CIs provide more non-responses, they produce fewer words correctly, they require a longer reaction time and they commit more picture-naming errors than children with typical hearing. The auditory age does significantly affect the results, but not the type of implant. In spite of the hearing gain achieved with the cochlear implant and the listening experience progressively achieved in distinct contexts, further explicit work on lexical naming in speech-therapy intervention is clearly required., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (© 2021 The Author(s).)