Relationships between speech perception abilities and spoken language skills in young children with hearing loss

• Published in: International journal of audiology Vol. 48; no. 5; p. 248
• Main Authors: Desjardin, Jean L, Ambrose, Sophie E, Martinez, Amy S, Eisenberg, Laurie S
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England 01.05.2009
• Subjects: Adult; Aging; Child; Child Language; Child, Preschool; Cochlear Implants; Female; Hearing Aids; Hearing Loss - psychology; Hearing Loss - therapy; Humans; Language Tests; Male; Middle Aged; Mothers; Regression Analysis; Reproducibility of Results; Speech; Speech Perception
• ISSN: 1708-8186
• DOI: 10.1080/14992020802607423

The goal of this study was to examine the relationships between scores obtained from measures of speech perception and language in a group of young children with hearing loss (HL). Eighteen children (mean age = 4.3 years) and their mothers participated in this study. Speech perception was measured using the online imitative test of speech pattern contrast perception (OLIMSPAC). Standardized language age equivalent scores were obtained using the Reynell developmental language scales-III. Number of word tokens, word types, and mean length of utterance (MLU) were extracted from the children's spontaneous language samples. Significant positive relationships were observed between children's OLIMSPAC scores and both standardized language scores (r ranging from 0.60 to 0.69; p <0.01) and all measures derived from children's spontaneous language samples (r ranging from 0.80 to 0.86; p<0.01). After controlling for child age, OLIMSPAC scores explained 34.1% of the variance in children's MLU. Using a new speech perception measure with reduced language demands, strong positive correlations were evident between speech perception and language skills for a young group of children with HL.