Executive functioning and nonverbal cognitive factors associated with response to technology-assisted language...

Area of Science:

• Child Language Acquisition
• Speech-Language Pathology
• Developmental Psychology

Background:

• Executive function (EF) skills are crucial for language development in children.
• Deaf/hard of hearing (DHH) children often face unique challenges in language acquisition.
• Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) technologies are increasingly used in speech-language therapy.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between executive function (EF) skills and language development in DHH children.
• To compare this relationship between children receiving Technology-Assisted Language Intervention (TALI) and those receiving treatment as usual (TAU).

Main Methods:

• A randomized trial compared TALI with TAU in DHH children.
• Language samples were analyzed for changes in mean length of utterance (MLU), mean turn length (MTL), and number of different words (NDW).
• Parent-report standardized assessments measured executive function (EF) skills.

Main Results:

• Higher EF skills correlated with improved MLU, MTL, and NDW in the TAU group (p < 0.05).
• No significant association was found between EF skills and language measures in the TALI group.
• Thirty-seven DHH children participated (TALI n=19, TAU n=18).

Conclusions:

• TALI may provide language learning support for DHH children, especially those with EF challenges.
• The findings suggest TALI's potential to benefit DHH children irrespective of their EF levels.
• Future research should explore EF-language outcome relationships within TALI and inform personalized interventions.