Assessing children with profound hearing loss and severe language delay: getting a broader picture

Six children with profound hearing loss and severe language delay participated in this pilot study. Four of the children used a Nucleus multi-channel cochlear implant only, while two wore binaural hearing aids. All the children had been diagnosed at an early age, fitted with a sensory device soon after, had considerable device experience and had attended an auditory oral early intervention setting. All the children were identified as having slower-than-expected development of spoken language. The study identified a number of potentially contributory factors including: inconsistency of device use and low levels of functioning on conversational attentiveness, speech perception, speech intelligibility, pragmatics, social competence, behaviour and temperament.