# Neurocognitive Plasticity in Young Deaf Adults: Effects of Cochlear Implantation and Sign Language Exposure

> **NIH NIH R01** · ROCHESTER INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY · 2021 · $502,511

## Abstract

According to the latest data from the NIDCD, approximately 2 to 3 out of every 1,000 children born in
the United States have a measurable hearing loss at birth. For some of these children, that hearing loss is
profound and can preclude typical acquisition of spoken language. As of 2012, around 38,000 children in
the United States had received a cochlear implant (CI). For many of these children, the implant has
permitted access to spoken language. However, what is perhaps most striking about spoken language
outcomes following cochlear implantation is the variability. Understanding this variability is the first step
in developing effective interventions to move a greater number of children towards a more successful
outcome. The research proposed here will be one of the first large-scale studies to examine spoken
language outcomes in young deaf adults who received their implants in childhood and are now enrolled
at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (RIT/NTID) in Rochester NY. The majority of these
students were born with profound hearing losses, and they vary in terms of whether or not they use a CI,
the age at which they received a CI and their primary mode of communication. This project aims to
characterize cognitive deficits in young deaf adults as a function of their atypical central auditory
development, determine the impact of cochlear implantation on the remediation of those cognitive
deficits, and carefully examine the impact of communication mode (signed versus spoken) on cognitive
deficits and spoken language outcomes. In a large sample of 480 young deaf adults: (i) high-density EEG
will be used to document the effect of congenital profound deafness on central auditory cortical
development by recording cortical responses to both auditory (CAEPs) and visual stimuli (VEPs), and
(ii) domain-general measures of cognitive (sequence processing, executive function) and language
outcomes will be obtained. Mediation analyses will be used to determine whether it is atypical auditory
cortical development or cross-modal recruitment of auditory brain areas by vision that best predicts
cognitive deficits and subsequent spoken language development. We will then test the hypothesis that
one source of variability in CI outcomes stems from the extent to which age of implantation modulates
auditory cortical maturation to remediate cognitive deficits. Finally, the unique sample of young adults at
RIT/NTID, many of whom learned a natural sign language in infancy and wear a cochlear implant,
affords the possibility of examining the role of early exposure to American Sign Language (ASL) in
mitigating deficits in sequence processing and executive control, potentially boosting spoken language
outcomes.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10197874
- **Project number:** 5R01DC016346-05
- **Recipient organization:** ROCHESTER INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
- **Principal Investigator:** Matthew William Geoffrey Dye
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $502,511
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-07-01 → 2024-09-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10197874

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10197874, Neurocognitive Plasticity in Young Deaf Adults: Effects of Cochlear Implantation and Sign Language Exposure (5R01DC016346-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10197874. Licensed CC0.

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