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Effects of children's hearing loss on the synchrony between parents' object naming and children's attention
Chi-Hsin Chen1, Irina Castellanos2, Chen Yu3
1Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, The Ohio State University, 915 Olentangy River Road, Columbus, Ohio 43212, United States.
Insights
Children with hearing loss showed similar amounts of attention during parent interactions but less synchronized attention to named objects, impacting early word learning. This highlights a key difference in attentional patterns.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Pediatric Audiology
- Child Language Acquisition
Background:
- Children's attention during parent-child interactions is crucial for developing language skills, particularly word learning.
- Understanding attentional patterns in toddlers with hearing loss is vital for early intervention strategies.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate real-time attentional synchrony between parents and toddlers during object naming in parent-child interactions.
- To compare attentional patterns in toddlers with and without hearing loss.
Main Methods:
- Utilized high-density gaze data from head-mounted eye-trackers to record toddler attention.
- Analyzed synchrony between parent object naming and toddler sustained attention during joint play.
- Included 15 toddlers aged 12-37 months, with and without hearing loss.
Main Results:
- The frequency of parent naming and toddler sustained attention episodes were comparable between groups.
- Toddlers with hearing loss exhibited less synchronization between parent naming and their sustained attention compared to normally hearing peers.
- This reduced synchrony may affect word learning in children with hearing loss.
Conclusions:
- While the quantity of interaction elements is similar, the quality of attentional synchrony differs in toddlers with hearing loss.
- Findings suggest potential challenges in word learning for children with hearing loss due to attentional desynchronization.
- Further research is needed to explore interventions addressing these attentional differences.
Abstract:
Children's attentional state during parent-child interactions is important for word learning. The current study examines the real-time attentional patterns of toddlers with and without hearing loss (N = 15, age range: 12-37 months) in parent-child interactions. High-density gaze data recorded from head-mounted eye-trackers were used to investigate the synchrony between parents' naming of novel objects and children's sustained attention on the named objects in joint play. Results show that the sheer quantities of parents' naming and children's sustained attention episodes were comparable in children with hearing loss and their peers with normal hearing. However, parents' naming and children's sustained attention episodes were less synchronized in the hearing loss group compared to children with normal hearing. Possible implications are discussed.