Purpose Spoken language skills of 3- and 6-year-old children who are hard of hearing (HH) were compared to those of children with normal hearing (NH). Method Language skills were measured via MLU in words and percent correct use of finite verb morphology in obligatory contexts based on spontaneous conversational samples gathered from 185 children (145 HH; 40 NH). Aided speech intelligibility index (aided SII), better ear pure tone average (BE-PTA), maternal education, and age of amplification were used to predict outcomes within the HH group. Results On average, the HH group had MLUws that were .25-.5 words shorter than the NH group at both ages and they produced fewer obligatory verb morphemes. After age, aided SII and age of amplification predicted MLUw. Aided SII and PTA were not interchangeable in this analysis. Age followed by either PTA or aided SII best predicted verb morphology use. Conclusions Children who are HH lag behind their NH peers in grammatical aspects of language. Although some children appear to catch up, more than half the children who were HH fell below the 25th percentile. Continued monitoring of language outcomes is warranted since children who are HH are at increased risk for language learning difficulties.
Purpose Production accuracy of s-related morphemes was examined in 3-year-olds with mild-to-severe hearing loss, focusing on perceptibility, articulation, and input frequency. Method Morphemes with /s/, /z/, and /ɪz/ as allomorphs (plural, possessive, third person singular –s, and auxiliary and copula ‘is’) were analyzed from language samples gathered from 51 children (ages: 2;10–3;8) who are hard of hearing (HH), all of whom used amplification. Articulation was assessed via the Goldman-Fristoe Test of Articulation, 2nd edition (GFTA-II) and monomorphemic word final /s/ and /z/ production. Hearing was measured via better ear pure tone average (BE-PTA), unaided Speech Intelligibility Index (SII), and aided sensation level of speech at 4 kHz (4kHz SL). Results Unlike results reported for NH children, the HH group correctly produced the /ɪz/ allomorph more than /s/ and /z/ allomorphs. Relative accuracy levels for morphemes and sentence positions paralleled that of NH children. 4kHz SL scores (but not BE-PTA or SII), GFTA-II, and word final s/z use all predicted accuracy. Conclusions Both better hearing and higher articulation scores are associated with improved morpheme production, and better aided audibility in the high frequencies and word final production of s/z are particularly critical for morpheme acquisition in children who are HH.
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