Communication breakdown repair skills: Comparison between deaf and hard-of-hearing, and normal-hearing adolescents

Communication breakdowns and their repair by deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) and hearing adolescents were examined in conversation with an unfamiliar communication partner.

This study compared the number and type of clarification requests and responses to those requests of 16 DHH and 16 normal-hearing adolescents aged 11-16 years, in a 10-minute conversation with an unfamiliar adult. It also analyzed the relationship between speech intelligibility, communication breakdowns, and clarification requests by an unfamiliar adult. the Children's Communication Checklist (CCC) was completed by parents.

DHH adolescents demonstrated significantly higher usage of nonverbal clarification requests and verbal and nonverbal responses to clarification requests compared to normal-hearing adolescents in conversations with an unfamiliar adult. Furthermore, the subscale scores of the CCC and the speech intelligibility of DHH adolescents were significantly lower than those of normal-hearing adolescents. There were correlations between speech intelligibility and the speech subscale score of the CCC, as well as correlations between the pragmatic composite score of the CCC, the number of communication breakdowns, and the number of clarification requests by an unfamiliar adult.

The adolescents with DHH experienced more communication breakdowns in conversation with an unfamiliar adult and the number of clarification requests made by adults was higher.