Visual working memory span in adults with cochlear implants: Some preliminary findings

Verbal WM assessed using visual tasks relates weakly to sentence recognition for degraded speech. CI users performed equivalently to NH peers on most visual tasks of WM, but they outperformed NH peers on symbol span accuracy. This finding deserves further exploration but may suggest that CI users develop alternative or compensatory strategies associated with rapid verbal coding, as a result of their prolonged experience of auditory deprivation.