When I first learned that we were going to be doing a research paper in this class, the only restrictions I was given were that the topic had to include something within our field and how it relates to literacy. At first, I had no clue what to research because I am interested in so many aspects of speech-language pathology. After a little bit of consideration, I narrowed it down to either disadvantaged children or cochlear implanted children. However, once I compared the two, I knew that I wanted to research cochlear implants because I am very interested in aural rehabilitation, especially in the auditory oral approach used with cochlear implants. Next, I had to think about cochlear implants as they relate to literacy. This is something that I had virtually no exposure to; all of my background has been in either the actual makeup of the implant and how it works or the therapy for children with implants. I began searching through the somewhat scarce research about cochlear implants to try and decide what aspect of literacy I wanted to focus on.
However, the thought process did not end here. At first, my essential question was, “How do cochlear implants affect a child’s literacy?” After meeting with my professor, I realized that this question was way too broad and I needed to create a more specific question. My professor and I developed a question that asked, “In what ways do cochlear implants facilitate the development of literacy skills through the auditory channel?” As I attempted to do research with this as my essential question, though, I was still having difficulties. After much deliberation, I finally decided to focus on reading development in children with cochlear implants because of the importance of language, and therefore hearing, in reading. My final question, which did not come about until I had completed much of my research and therefore was a work in progress, is, “How does age of implantation have an effect on reading ability in cochlear implanted children?”
