Psycholinguistic profiling of a hearing-impaired child

Abstract

The speech and language processing abilities of a 10 year old with a severe hearing impairment and additional word retrieval difficulties are examined at a single word level using Stackhouse and Wells’ psycholinguistic framework. Performance on a variety of output tasks is compared and input processing is investigated in detail. Evidence is found for a breakdown in processing at several levels. The specific point of breakdown for individual contrasts is identified. It is shown to be possible and informative to use a psycholinguistic framework with a child with a hearing impairment to produce a detailed profile which could inform therapy decisions.

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