False Belief Understanding in Deaf Children With Cochlear Implants.

Children were tested once, so the study cannot show how an individual child changes over time. Three implant children quit the false belief task and two did not pass the control task, so they were not included in the main analysis. Family socioeconomic status and general intellectual abilities were not measured. The study did not measure how often parents talked about thoughts and feelings, which the authors discuss as a possible influence. The study could not test 3-year-olds with cochlear implants because they could not understand the task instructions. The lack of difference between older implant children and hearing children was equivocal; the authors said the evidence for no difference was not strong. All implant children had received their first implant by 27 months of age, so the study cannot speak to later implantation. The comparison of implantation at or before 12 months versus 13 months or later was limited because the groups differed by only 1 month in cutoff. Only two 4-year-olds with cochlear implants passed the false belief test, so this small subgroup cannot support conclusions.

The paper states that funding was provided by the National Science Centre; it does not list industry funding or author conflicts.

Do not conclude that cochlear implants cause delayed false belief understanding. The study compared children who already used implants with hearing children; it did not assign implants, and 43 of the 45 implant children had used a hearing aid before implantation. Do not read the lack of difference in 6-, 7-, and 8-year-olds as proof of catch-up; the authors said the evidence for no difference was not strong.