Turn-Taking and Vocal Coordination in Mother-Child Mixed-Hearing Dyads and the Effect of Home Music Engagement: A Longitudinal Study on Italian Children With Cochlear Implants.

Only thirty-four dyads took part, seventeen in each group, and the authors say the missing differences in children's pause timing between visits and groups may be a result of the small sample. Home music engagement was measured only in the cochlear implant group, so nothing can be said about whether music at home matters for hearing children, and the answers rely on mothers' recall of activities after the study had finished. The two groups were matched on the children's age, not on how long they had been hearing, so the hearing children had years more listening experience behind them. Only vocalizations were coded. Gaze, pointing and shared visual attention, which matter a lot for children with cochlear implants, were not examined. Age at diagnosis and age at implantation varied widely between the children, and the authors found no consistent link between these ages and the interaction measures. The music analysis is cross-sectional: music engagement and pause timing were measured at the same visit, so it cannot show which came first.

Funded by a Joint Project Grant 2016 (IIR-1851) from the University of Verona and Cochlear S.r.l., the company that makes cochlear implants. The authors state the funder had no role in the design, conduct, data collection, analysis, interpretation, writing or the decision to publish, and they declare no conflicts of interest.

Do not read this as evidence that music training improves turn-taking in children with cochlear implants. The music result is a correlation within one group at a single visit, based on mothers' own reports of what they do at home, and the authors themselves call for further research to replicate it.