The development of symbolic play has been associated with the development of language in young children and previous research has demonstrated that children with well-developed symbolic play skills are those who acquire language faster and to a higher level. This study investigated whether children's symbolic play assessed pre-implant predicted spoken language abilities at one year post-implant. This study measured the pretend play of 18 children during the assessment phase before cochlear implantation and their oral language development at one year postimplantation. The children all met the criteria for implantation at the South of England Cochlear Implant Centre. The group included children with a wide variety of aetiologies, including four who were deafened after contracting meningitis. All the children had hearing parents and their mode of communication at home was oral or sign supported. The Symbolic Play Test, Lowe and Costello, and the Preschool Language Scales-3 (PLS) were selected to assess symbolic play preimplant and oral language at one year post-implant (Figures 1 and2). PLS-3 age-equivalent scores were obtained for Auditory Comprehension (ac), Expressive Communication (ec) and Total language Scores (tls). Twelve children were assigned to a group with less delay in play skills and five children in a second group with a greater delay.
No significant relationship between the two groups and language delays or the duration of deafness was demonstrated with the T-test for related samples. Similar group means were found for both good and poorer performers and large standard deviations were found for all measures. Symbolic play test results were not found to be significant predictors of language development at one year post-cochlear implantation. These findings may stem from the very diverse aetiologies seen in the study group. Measurable gains in children's oral language development may take longer than one year to appear and differences in the two groups might be seen at the two-year test interval.