So you as you already heard I will talk today about Theory of mind in deaf children
So just a brief introduction. Theory of mind (ToM) is the ability to understand and take into
account own and other people's mental state such as intentions, emotions, beliefs or knowledge
And it is being developed through early social interactions with children's caregivers
And its development is also related to their caregivers early language input. Deaf children who are born to deaf parents, they have their natural
language acquisition environment where they are born to parents who are native signers, so they acquire language in a natural way
So their Theory of mind development is usually intact
However deaf children who are born to hearing parents they have delays in Theory of mind development
Possible explanation is that since their hearing impairment limits their access to speech
sound and therefore to language that theory of mind may be delayed because of that
Language and cognition are related to theory of mind both in typical and in atypical populations such as deaf children and language and cognition are
usually delayed in deaf children but also in deafblind children with Usher syndrome
However we don't have information about Theory of mind development when it comes to deafblind children with Usher syndrome
But we can see that a lot of this skills are delayed both in deaf children
and deafblind children
So to close this developmental gap it is necessary to provide them with early access to sound and to language
Which might happen through early implantation and early intervention
To put this study in norwegian context since I am conducting the study here, it is important to say that deaf children are entitled to get free bilateral implantation before their first birthday
And they are getting it in Rikshospitalet which is the only implantation centre in Norway
Which means that they undergo the same procedure by the same team of people. Also we know that Norway
is the country of high standard with a free healthcare system
And also that we have highly standardized free education, so we might say that these children have good
beginning and good aspect to have their potential fulfilled, also we can say that when it comes to
early implantation that this criteria is satisfied when it comes to closing the developmental gap
But what we are interested is the intervention part which we don't have enough information about here in Norway
So what we aim to do is to compare Theory of mind language and cognitive skills which are in this case working memory and phonological skills
In deaf children and deafblind children with Usher syndrome both fitted with cochlear implants
to typical a developmental hearing children
And we assume that we will find that deaf children and deafblind children have som delays
However since we will include deaf children who are fitted early
We assume when comparing to previous studies who have included lately implanted children that we will see that developmental gap is getting smaller
We are also interested in the relationship between these three inn all three groups, and we expect to find that the relationship exists in all three groups. Furthermore we are interested in what kind of therapy properties
are related to different levels of Theory of mind, language and cognitive skills in deaf children with cochlear implants
However we don't have clear hypothesis there as we are using exploratory approach
We will include three groups of participants, 6 to 12, cognitively intact, all Norwegian speakers
So as I previously said deaf children, deafblind children with Usher syndrome both fitted with cochlear implants and controlgroup who will be typically developing hearing children
We will run a number of tests for language, working memory, phonological skills and Theory of mind
And we will also have a questionnaire to get information about the intervention they have been included in
Before the age of six, and we are currently collecting the data and what we hope to provide in the end of this study is
A certain guidelines for intervention for children with CI by taking into account different
Intervention properties that are related to Theory of mind, language and cognitive skills.