Narrative competence among hearing-impaired and normal-hearing children: analytical cross-sectional study

Abstract

CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVE: Oral narrative is a means of language development assessment. However, standardized data for deaf patients are scarce.The aim here was to compare the use of narrative competence between hearing-impaired and normal-hearing children. DESIGN AND SETTING:Analytical cross-sectional study at the Department of Speech-Language and Hearing Sciences, Universidade Federal de São Paulo.METHODS: Twenty-one moderately to profoundly bilaterally hearing-impaired children (cases) and 21 normal-hearing children without language abnormalities (controls), matched according to sex, age, schooling level and school type, were studied. A board showing pictures in a temporally logical sequence was presented to each child, to elicit a narrative, and the child's performance relating to narrative structure and cohesion was measured. The frequencies of variables, their associations (Mann-Whitney test) and their 95% confidence intervals was analyzed. RESULTS:The deaf subjects showed poorer performance regarding narrative structure, use of connectives, cohesion measurements and general punctuation (P ≤ 0.05). There were no differences in the number of propositions elaborated or in referent specification between the two groups.The deaf children produced a higher proportion of orientation-related propositions (P = 0.001) and lower proportions of propositions relating to complicating actions (P = 0.015) and character reactions (P = 0.005).CONCLUSION: Hearing-impaired children have abnormalities in different aspects of language, involving form, content and use, in relation to their normal-hearing peers. Narrative competence was also associated with the children's ages and the school type.RESUMO CONTEXTO E OBJETIVO: A narrativa oral constitui elemento de avaliação do desenvolvimento lingüístico, entretanto, são escassos os dados padronizados para pacientes surdos. O objetivo foi comparar o uso das competências narrativas entre crianças deficientes auditivas e ouvintes. TIPO DE ESTUDO E LOCAL: Estudo transversal analítico no Departamento de Fonoaudiologia, Universidade Federal de São Paulo.MÉTODO: Foram avaliadas 21 crianças com deficiência auditiva de grau moderado a profundo bilateral (casos) e 21 crianças ouvintes sem alterações de linguagem (controles) pareadas por sexo, idade, grau de escolaridade e tipo de escola frequentada. Foi apresentada uma prancha com figuras em sequência lógico-temporal para cada criança, para elicitar uma narrativa, e foi medido o desempenho na estrutura da narrativa e coesão. Foram analisadas as frequências das variáveis, suas associações (teste de Mann-Whitney) e intervalos de confiança de 95%. RESULTADOS:As crianças surdas apresentaram desempenho pior, na estrutura da narrativa, uso de conjunções, medidas de coesão e pontuação geral da narrativa (P ≤ 0,05). Não houve diferença no número de proposições elaboradas e especificação de referentes nos dois grupos. Os surdos produziram maior proporção de proposições do tipo orientação (P = 0,001) e menor proporção dos tipos ações complicador...

Phonological and semantic verbal fluency: a comparative study in hearing-impaired and normal-hearing people

“…It consists of an organized system of linguistic symbols -words -and rules for combining them (1) . Phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic processes allow the equilibrium between form, content, and use, giving functionality to the language (2) .…”

Use of nouns and verbs in the oral narrative of individuals with hearing impairment and normal hearing between 5 and 11 years of age

“…17 Moreover, hearing-impaired children's difficulties relating to form, content and use give rise to inadequacy of narrative competence regarding proposition use, narrative scores, narrative cohesion, cohesion measurements and overall narrative scores, with associations with the children's ages and the type of school attended (public or private). 4 Finally, our data suggest that these hearing-impaired children undergoing speech and language therapy showed self-organization with regard to time, space and causal relationships, because they were able to put events into a sequence according to temporal succession. The acquisition of oral language does not just happen suddenly: it is a time-dependent process.…”

Using narrative to investigate language skills of children who are deaf and with hard of hearing

“…In the assessment of language development of children; a narrative which assesses different components of the language in details has been started to be used in both clinical assessment and intervention programs. The analysis of the information gathered from the stories provides detailed information on how the children combine information about language rules (Soares et al, 2010). Narratives have been found to predict academic achievement of children at risk for language impairments (Fazio et al, 1996); for children with early language impairments, preschool narrative performance appears to predict later language development (Bishop and Edmondson, 1987) and reading comprehension (Bishop and Adams, 1990).…”