Lexical organization in Spanish-speaking children with hearing loss

Early language deprivation in children with hearing loss is an important cause of later language delays and hinders lexical organization. By studying how lexical organization affects lexical retrieval, it is possible to further understand lexical processing in children with hearing loss and their hearing peers.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate lexical organization among children with hearing loss. To this end, 43 children, divided into two groups, participated in two language production experiments. The deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) group consisted of 21 children with hearing loss who use either a cochlear implant or a hearing aid and oral language as their main means of communication; the typical hearing (TH) group consisted of 22 children with no hearing difficulties, paired by age to the DHH group. Experiment 1 consisted of a semantic verbal fluency task (SVF); lexical organization was evaluated through the grouping strategies used by participants within the semantic categories presented for the task. Experiment 2 consisted of a free word association task (FWA); lexical organization was evaluated through the types of lexical relations present between stimulus and response. To assess lexical retrieval we used, in Experiment 1 (SVF), the number of items produced in one minute, and in Experiment 2 (FWA), the response times.

Lexical organization showed contrasting patterns in both tasks. Similarities between groups were found in grouping strategies in the SVF, but dissimilarities were unveiled in the FWA concerning the proportions in the types of lexical relations presented by both groups. Lexical retrieval evidenced group differences: children with hearing loss showed a less efficient retrieval strategy in the SVF and slower response times in the FWA than their typical hearing counterparts.

These results indicate that both groups show similar lexical organization in grouping strategies within a category. However, children with hearing loss have fewer word relations involving lexical abstraction compared to their hearing peers. Moreover, children with hearing loss use different strategies than their hearing peers to retrieve words from their mental lexicon. Suggestions for clinical applications in language therapy are provided.