Preschool children with hearing loss; development of syntax and socio-conversational skills.

Abstract

Research reports on the speech and language skills of children with hearing loss have varied considerably in the past as to the depth and detail of the analysis that has been carried out. Studies have tended to use standardised norm-referenced tests rather than language sample analyses. Such results, although undoubtedly useful, would benefit from the addition of some in-depth analysis. This presentation will report on the results of a project wherein samples of Child/Caregiver interactions from preschool children with hearing loss and a normal-hearing matched group were analysed using LARSP (Crystal, Fletcher & Garman, 1982), a detailed analysis of syntactical development, and Socio-Conversational Analysis (Fey, 1986), which looks at speech acts and communicative participation. Samples were from 3 and 4 year-old children, and from the 4 year olds again a year later. The results indicate the value of in-depth analysis. Considerably more detail than usual is available for greater depth of understanding of the strengths and weaknesses, and it is especially useful for intervention. Some differences between the groups were clear, with delay in the hearing impaired group. However individual differences and trajectories, often subsumed in group studies, were also significant. In both groups the nature of the task and of the interactions made a clear difference, and the problem of what constitutes “the language sample” and its consequences are discussed