Associations Between Parenting Stress, Language Comprehension, and Inhibitory Control in Children With Hearing Loss

Purpose Parenting stress has been studied as a potential predictor of developmental outcomes in children with normal hearing and children who are deaf and hard of hearing. However, it is unclear how parenting stress might underlie at-risk spoken language and neurocognitive outcomes in this clinical pediatric population. We investigated parenting stress levels and the shared relations between parenting stress, language comprehension, and inhibitory control skills in children with and without hearing loss (HL) using a cross-sectional design. Method Families of children with HL (n = 39) and with normal hearing (n = 41) were tested. Children completed an age-appropriate version of the Concepts & Following Directions subtest of the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals and the NIH Toolbox Flanker Test of Attention and Inhibitory control. Caregivers completed the Parenting Stress Index-Short Form 4. Results Parenting stress levels were not significantly different between parents of children with and without HL. A significant negative association was observed between parenting stress and our measure of language comprehension in children with HL. A negative association between parenting stress and inhibitory control skills was also found in families of children with HL, but not hearing children. The parenting stress-inhibitory control relationship was indirectly accounted for by delayed language comprehension skills in children with HL. Conclusion Even at moderate levels of parenting stress similar to parents of children with normal hearing, increases in parenting stress were associated with lower scores on our measures of language comprehension and inhibitory control in children with HL. Thus, parenting stress may underlie some of the variability in at-risk pediatric HL outcomes.