The narrative skills of primary school children with a unilateral hearing impairment

Abstract

The discourse skills of four boys with a unilateral hearing impairment (UHI), aged 7·2-10·7 years, were appraised over a 2-year period by examining their oral narrative use. All subjects exhibited delayed narrative skills, including features typical of children with a language disorder. These findings of language difficulties within this population were at variance with previous findings showing that children with UHI do not experience language problems. The subjects' language skills were discussed in relation to their academic performance. The implications of the findings for the process of narrative assessment were also discussed.

Speech-in-Noise and Quality-of-Life Measures in School-Aged Children With Normal Hearing and With Unilateral Hearing Loss

“…165). It is now well understood that children with UHL are at risk for academic underachievement, behavioral problems, psychosocial issues, and speech and language delays (Peckham & Sheridan 1976;Davis et al 1981;Bess & Tharpe 1984;Bess et al 1986;Culbertson & Gilbert 1986;Bovo et al 1988;Oyler & et al 1988;Jensen et al 1989;Young et al 1997;Watier-Launey et al 1998;Kiese-Himmel 2002;Sedey et al 2002;Borg et al 2002;Most 2004;Martínez-Cruz et al 2009;Lieu et al 2010;Lieu 2013;Fischer & Lieu 2014). Several recent reviews of outcomes in children with UHL provide valuable summaries of what is currently known and demonstrate increased interest in understanding the abilities of and difficulties experienced by this population of children (Kuppler et al 2013;Winiger et al 2016;Krishnan & Van Hyfte 2016;Dornhoffer & Dornhoffer 2016;Rohlfs et al 2017;Anne et al 2017).…”

The impact of permanent early-onset unilateral hearing impairment in children – A systematic review

“…The rest of the studies dealt with various aspects of UHI, such as narrative skills and the neurofunctional organization of reading. There were too few patients studied with each method and per each outcome to allow any consistent qualitative summary based on these six reports [74][75][76][77][78][79].…”

A Survey of Assessment Tools Used by LSLS Certified Auditory-Verbal Therapists for Children Ages Birth to 3 Years Old

“…Two studies focus on speech and literacy, adding evidence to a growing body of research that shows children who receive early intervention can and do have Massaro & Light, 2004;Pittman, 2008). Deficits in prerequisite linguistic skills, such as phonological coding (Carney & Moeller, 1998;Mayberry, Del Giudice, & Lieberman, 2011;Robertson, Dow, & Hainzinger, 2006;Young et al, 1997), and a reported preference for the visual portion of complex auditory-visual (AV) signals (Schorr, Fox, van Wassenhove, & Knudsen, 2005), may also restrict the development of narrative skills in children with hearing loss. However, because studies examining how children with hearing loss cope with verbal discourse are rare (Ibertsson, Hansson, Maki-Torkko, Willstedt-Svennssson, & Sahlen, 2009), the extent and nature of narrative deficits experienced by this population is not well understood.…”

“…Children who use hearing aids may reach this milestone later than their peers, despite advances in identification, intervention practices, and improvements in hearing technology, all of which have contributed to improved acquisition of speech and language skills (Justice et al, 2008;Worsfold, Mahon, Yuen, & Kennedy, 2010). Deficits in vocabulary and grammatical comprehension (Carney & Moeller, 1998;Fagan & Pisoni, 2010;Robertson et al, 2006;Young et al, 1997) and limitations in world experience (Easterbrooks, Lederberg, & Connor, 2010) persist, potentially impeding narrative language comprehension. This is because children who use hearing aids continue to receive a distorted auditory signal, complicating the perception and discrimination of verbal messages (Zupan, 2013).…”