Phonological development in 4-6-year-old moderately hearing impaired children

Area of Science:

• Linguistics
• Speech-Language Pathology
• Audiology

Background:

• Clear phonological rule acquisition is crucial for children's spoken language decoding and meaning conveyance.
• Hearing impairment (HI) can significantly affect a child's phonological development and speech production.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate phonological processes in Finnish-speaking children with moderate hearing impairment.
• To compare the phonological development of hearing-impaired children with normally hearing peers.

Main Methods:

• Collected speech samples of 62 words from 15 Finnish-speaking children (5 normally hearing, 10 hearing impaired).
• Utilized a picture naming task to elicit speech data.
• Analyzed phonetic errors and phonological processes in relation to hearing loss severity and age.

Main Results:

• Hearing-impaired children demonstrated frequent phonetic (articulation) errors.
• Both normal (delayed) and deviant phonological processes were observed in hearing-impaired children.
• The frequency and type of phonological processes correlated more strongly with the grade of hearing impairment than with the child's age.

Conclusions:

• Children with moderate hearing impairment exhibit distinct phonological patterns that deviate from typical development.
• The severity of hearing loss is a key factor influencing phonological development in children.
• Findings suggest tailored speech therapy approaches are necessary for hearing-impaired children.