Language of Young Hearing-Impaired Children

Abstract

Verbal descriptions of picture stimuli by young children with normal or impaired hearing were evaluated both by ratings and by certain objective scores. One global dimension of language goodness emerged from judges' ratings of structure, grammar, content and creativity. Ratings of structure were successfully predicted by a linear combination of weighted measures of total number of different words, total number of very-high-frequency words, total number of different function words, and total duration of utterance. Scores for tests repeated over periods as long as three years to the same hearing-impaired children reflected growth in language ability which, in some instances, exceeded rate of development of younger normal children. Children who have considerable hearing impairment but who also receive suitable sound amplification may progress rapidly in a " natural " language learning programme. Although these data should not be considered as normative, a first step in developing a clinical measuring tool may be provided by such picture descriptions and associated objective scores.

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