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An examination of the early literacy skills of five- to six-year-old children who are deaf and hard of hearing
Abstract
Children’s early literacy skills (ELS) are closely related to literacy learning and reading comprehension performance. Children who cannot acquire early literacy skills face significant difficulties in doing so in the following years. Although it is widely known that children who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) perform less well in early literacy skills than their typically developing peers, there is not enough information about the magnitude of the performance differences and in which skills these occur in Turkish-speaking children who are DHH. In this study, the early literacy skills (language, vocabulary, phonological awareness and letter knowledge) of 30 Turkish-speaking DHH children and 30 with typical development (TD) attending kindergarten were compared. The Coloured Progressive Matrices Test, as well as the Turkish early language development and Turkish expressive and receptive language tests, in addition to the early literacy one, were used to determine the children’s skill levels. The results of the analysis showed that the DHH children performed at significantly lower levels in language, vocabulary and phonological awareness skills than their peers with TD, while there was no major difference between the two groups in letter knowledge. The outcomes also revealed that there were a higher number of significant relationships among the early literacy skills of the DHH children than those with TD. The findings of are further discussed in regard to their contribution to current research and practice relating to the early literacy skills of Turkish-speaking children who are DHH.
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In this research, it was aimed to test the reliability and validity of Colored Progressive Matrices for children between the ages of 4 to 6 from 15 schools. The sample of the study consisted of 640 kindergarten children. Test-retest and parallel form were used for reliability analyses. For the validity analysis, the relations between the Colored Progressive Matrices Test and Bender Gestalt Visual Motor Sensitivity Test, WISC-R
and TONI-3 tests were examined. The results showed that there was a significant relation between the test-retest results and the parallel forms in all the age groups. Validity analyses showed strong correlations between the Colored Progressive Matrices and all the other measure
The aim of this qualitative case study is to understand a five year old hearing impaired child’s emergent literacy activities and behaviors. It is also included others in the child’s inner circle in order to examine literacy experiences entirely. Participants are the child, five year old hearing impairment with cochlear implant, his parents and his special educationalist live in İzmir, Turkey. Research data have been gathered in the child’s house intensively though, the research environment has expanded in line with the daily routines of the child and his family. Data have been collected through participant observations, unstructured and semi-structured interviews, products and pictures for six weeks. The collected data were analyzed both inductively and descriptively. In addition, the emergent literacy skills of the child were assessed with the help of the Emergent Literacy Skills Control List. Results showed that a hearing impaired child has emergent literacy skills of his age in print knowledge, alphabetical knowledge and phonological awareness. He has experienced reading aloud and tale routines, functional reading activities, free and interactional play activities. His early literacy activities are in his daily routines and also they are influenced his mother’s literacy habits. As a result of the research, it can be said that the hearing loss child with early literacy experiences shows similar literary behaviors to his hearing age.
We examined the developmental relationships between home literacy environment (parent teaching, shared book reading) and emergent literacy skills (phonological awareness, letter knowledge, vocabulary, rapid naming speed) in kindergarten, reading accuracy and fluency in Grade 1, and reading comprehension in Grades 2 and 3 in a sample of Canadian children learning to read English (N = 214). Results from a latent variable model showed that parent teaching predicted letter knowledge and phonological awareness, and shared book reading predicted vocabulary and rapid naming speed after controlling for family socioeconomic status. Moreover, both parent teaching and shared book reading contributed indirectly to reading accuracy and fluency in Grade 1, which then mediated the effects of home literacy environment on reading comprehension in Grades 2 and 3. The results suggest that the effects of home literacy environment on later reading development are distributed via more pathways than previously thought.
Objective:
This study aimed to present the follow-up results of newborns after universal newborn hearing screening at a Training and Research Hospital in İstanbul and to determine the ages of diagnosis, hearing aid fitting, and cochlear implantation in newborns with hearing loss.
Materials and methods:
A total of 5985 newborns were screened between December 2009 and August 2011 using the transient evoked otoacoustic emission test as the first two steps and automated auditory brainstem response (ABR) test as the third step. Newborns who failed the screening tests were referred to a tertiary hospital for clinic ABR and were followed up at least for 2 years.
Results:
Of 5985 newborns, 5116 (85.5%) completed the screening. Of 53 newborns who were referred to a tertiary hospital, 13 (0.25%) had a hearing impairment. The mean age of diagnosis, hearing aid fitting, and cochlear implantation were 6.1, 9.5, and 24.5 months, respectively. Among the risk factors for hearing impairment, neonatal intensive care (60%) and consanguineous marriage (50%) were the most common ones that were encountered.
Conclusion:
Our results were consistent with the national literature. Consanguineous marriage may be a risk factor for hearing impairment where it is commonly practiced because consanguineous marriage is significantly high in parents of deaf children. The ages of diagnosis and hearing aid fitting are still beyond the recommended ages by the Joint Committee on Infant Hearing.
Bu araştırma, Türk çocuklarının erken okuryazarlık becerilerini geçerli ve güvenilir bir şekilde ölçecek kapsamlı bir ölçme aracına duyulan gereksinimle planlanmıştır. Araştırmanın amacını, bu nedenle, 5 yaş çocuklarına yönelik standardizasyonu yapılmış bir erken okuryazarlık testinin-Erken Okuryazarlık Testi (EROT) - geliştirilmesi ve geçerlik ve güvenirliğinin test edilmesi oluşturmuştur. Araştırmanın evrenini Ankara, örneklem grubunu ise Ankara ili kent merkezi sınırları içerisinde yer alan yedi merkez ilçede Milli Eğitim Bakanlığına bağlı bağımsız anaokulları ile ilkokulların bünyesinde 5 yaş çocuklarına eğitim veren sınıflarda öğrenim gören 403 çocuk oluşturmuştur. Çalışma içerisinde çocukların erken okuryazarlık becerileri EROT kapsamında geliştirilen 7 alt test (Alıcı Dil, İfade Edici Dil, Genel İsimlendirme, İşlev Bilgisi, Harf Bilgisi, Sesbilgisel Farkındalık ve Dinlediğini Anlama) ile değerlendirilmiştir. Yapılan değerlendirmelerden elde edilen veriler ise EROT’un geçerlik ve güvenirlik hesaplamalarının yapılabilmesi için analiz edilmiştir. Analizlerden elde edilen bulgular, EROT’un 7 alt test ile erken okuryazarlık becerilerini geçerli ve güvenir şekilde ölçtüğünü göstermiştir.
This study was planned due to the crucial need for a standardized measure of early literacy with demonstrated validity and reliability for Turkish children. Therefore, this study aimed to develop a standardized measure of early literacy-the Test of Early Literacy (TEL) for kindergarten children and to test its validity and reliability. Participants were 403 kindergarten children selected from several schools located in neighborhoods of different socioeconomic statuses in Ankara. The early literacy skills of children were tested with seven sub-tests of TEL (Receptive Language, Expressive Language, Category Naming, Function Knowledge, Letter Knowledge, Phonological Awareness, and Listening Comprehension). The gathered data was used to analyze the validity and reliability of TEL. In general, the findings suggest that TEL has adequate validity and reliability for evaluating the early literacy skills of Turkish kindergarten children.
This study investigates early childhood teachers’ knowledge on early literacy, and their classroom practices promoting children’s early literacy acquisition. The “Teacher Interview Form” was developed by the researchers to determine teachers’ knowledge and practices on early literacy. Interviews were conducted individually with 17 kindergarten teachers. The data were analyzed using content analysis which is a technique used in qualitative research. The results revealed that an important number of the teachers did not have sufficient knowledge about early literacy, and that their classroom practices were not designed to adequately promote children’s early literacy acquisition. The findings are discussed within the context of the relevant literature and early childhood education system in Turkey. Implications for practice and recommendations for future research are presented.
Early diagnosis of the children with prelingual hearing loss (CPHL) is important for maintenance of developmental steps. Gazi Early Childhood Assessment Tool (GECDA) has been developed for the assessment of developmental areas during early childhood. Our purpose was to evaluate its sensitivity to hearing-thresholds, durations of diagnosis, device- use and special education in CPHL. We included 40 CPHL and 40 controls, and observed that CPHL were classified in lowlimit of all areas. The worse hearing is the lower linguistic, cognitive and psychomotorscores are. Additionally when the duration of special education and device-use increases, the scores in the developmental areas are higher. Hence, we may conclude that GECDA is practical tool for evaluation of developmental steps in CPHL
This study investigates early childhood teachers’ knowledge on early literacy, and their classroom practices promoting children’s early literacy acquisition. The “Teacher Interview Form” was developed by the researchers to determine teachers’ knowledge and practices on early literacy. Interviews were conducted individually with 17 kindergarten teachers. The data were analyzed using content analysis which is a technique used in qualitative research. The results revealed that an important number of the teachers did not have sufficient knowledge about early literacy, and that their classroom practices were not designed to adequately promote children’s early literacy acquisition. The findings are discussed within the context of the relevant literature and early childhood education system in Turkey. Implications for practice and recommendations for future research are presented.
The early skills of Emergent Literacy include the knowledge and abilities related to the alphabet, phonological awareness, symbolic representation, and communication. However, existing models of emergent literacy focus on discrete skills and miss the perspective of the surrounding environment. Early literacy skills, including their relationship to one another, and the substantial impact of the setting and context, are critical in ensuring that children gain all of the preliminary skills and awareness they will need to become successful readers and writers. Research findings over the last few decades have led to a fuller understanding of all that emergent literacy includes, resulting in a need for a new, more comprehensive model. A new model, described in this article, strives to explain how emergent literacy can be viewed as an interactive process of skills and context rather than a linear series of individual components. Early literacy learning opportunities are more likely to happen when teachers have a solid knowledge base of emergent literacy and child development. Research has shown that preschool teachers with limited knowledge about literacy development are significantly less able to provide such experiences for children. Teachers will be better able to facilitate all of the components of emergent literacy if they have access to, and understanding of, a model that describes the components, their interactions, and the importance of environmental factors in supporting children.
This paper reviews the impact that cochlear implantation has had on the practice of deaf education in terms of educational placement, communication choices, and educational attainments. Although there is variation in outcome, more children with implants are going to mainstream schools, and using spoken language as their primary means of communication, and the evidence to date suggests that cochlear implantation early in life has led to improved levels of spoken language and educational attainments. However, there is also evidence that providing an appropriate educational environment for these learners remains a challenge – from parents making choices in the early years to students managing the complexity of the secondary and post-secondary setting. Managing the technology effectively in the classroom remains an issue in many schools, and ongoing training of teachers and other educational workers needs to include its management. While the positive benefits of cochlear implantation are clear, we must also be mindful of the attendant challenges in providing flexibility of choice in meeting the needs of this increasingly diverse population.
Mastery of the alphabetic principle necessitates learning letter–sound correspondences. In this study, we found evidence of the importance of spoken phonology in the letter–sound learning of 89 deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH) preschoolers. Only DHH children with at least some ability to perceive speech were included in the study. DHH children were more likely to know letter sounds for which the corresponding letter name contains a phonological cue (e.g., d as opposed to h), a phenomenon robustly observed in hearing children (e.g., Treiman, Weatherston, & Berch, 1994). However, unlike the pattern observed in hearing children, DHH children benefited more from phonological cues that are at the end of letter names (e.g., m) rather than the beginning (e.g., b). DHH children’s letter-sound knowledge was strongly associated with phonological awareness—and phoneme-level skills in particular. Despite less differentiated phonological representations, DHH children seem to rely on similar processes to hearing children as they begin to acquire the alphabetic principle, with spoken phonology playing an important role.
This meta-analysis examines the effects of vocabulary interventions on pre-K and kindergarten children’s oral language development. The authors quantitatively reviewed 67 studies and 216 effect sizes to better understand the impact of training on word learning. Results indicated an overall effect size of .88, demonstrating, on average, a gain of nearly one standard deviation on vocabulary measures. Moderator analyses reported greater effects for trained adults in providing the treatment, combined pedagogical strategies that included explicit and implicit instruction, and author-created measures compared to standardized measures. Middle- and upper-income at-risk children were significantly more likely to benefit from vocabulary intervention than those students also at risk and poor. These results indicate that although they might improve oral language skills, vocabulary interventions are not sufficiently powerful to close the gap—even in the preschool and kindergarten years.
A reliable, valid and original test to assess the receptive vocabulary skills of children in Turkey was not available. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to develop a receptive vocabulary test for Turkish children based on the Turkish language.
For the Receptive Vocabulary Sub-Scale (TIFALDI-RT) 242 concrete and abstract words were chosen from word frequency lists and a comprehensive Turkish Dictionary. Pilot data were collected from 648 children aged 2 to 13 from Ankara, and norm data were collected from a nationally representative sample of 3755 children.
Item analysis (item difficulty, discrimination and distractor) was carried out on the pilot data and based on the results, the total item number was reduced to 157. Further, three parameter item analyses (IRT) were carried out on the norm data by using BILOG-MG (SSI, 2002), and the results indicated that the TIFALDI Receptive Vocabulary Sub-Scale could be reduced to 104 items to assess 2 to 12 year-old children's receptive vocabulary. Test-retest and internal consistency reliabilities were calculated for the whole sample and age groups separately, and all the coefficients were high. For the validity, the relationship between the WISC-R and Ankara Developmental Screening Inventory (AGTE) and Receptive Vocabulary Sub-Scale were investigated. Once again, the TIFALDI Receptive Vocabulary Sub-Scale scores were found to be significantly related to WISC-R and AGTE scores.
The TIFALDI Receptive Vocabulary Sub-Scale was developed on the basis of the Turkish Language and norm data were collected from a nationally representative sample. The TIFALDI-RT also had a high reliability and validity. Thus, the TIFALDI-RT can be used to assess 2 to 12 year-old children's receptive vocabulary skills.
The preschool years are critical to the development of emergent literacy skills that will ensure a smooth transition into formal reading. Phonological awareness, print awareness, and oral language development are three areas associated with emergent literacy that play a crucial role in the acquisition of reading. This article presents an overview of these critical components of emergent literacy. The overview includes a brief review of recent research and provides strategies for developing phonological awareness, print awareness, and oral language in the preschool classroom.
The current study examined the early literacy skills of kindergartners with hearing loss who were enrolled in individual inclusion or group inclusion programs as well as those of children with typical hearing. We also examined the relationship between early literacy skills and background variables such as degree of hearing loss, type of sensory aid used, age at onset of rehabilitation and family's socioeconomic status. Forty-two children participated: 16 were children with hearing loss in a group inclusive program, 15 were children with hearing loss in an individual inclusive program and 11 were children with typical hearing. We evaluated the following early literacy skills: word identification, writing level, phonological awareness, letter identification, orthographic awareness, general knowledge and vocabulary. Main findings indicated that children with hearing loss in the individual inclusive program yielded better achievements compared to those enrolled in the group inclusive program regarding phonological awareness, letter identification, general knowledge and vocabulary. Achievements of children with typical hearing in these parameters surpassed those of children with hearing loss in either of the inclusive programs. No statistically significant differences emerged between individual and group inclusive programs regarding reading, writing or orthographic awareness. Achievements of the hearing children in these parameters surpassed those enrolled in group inclusion but did not differ statistically from those enrolled in individual inclusion. Our findings showed a negative correlation between general knowledge and degree of hearing loss. Also, general knowledge, reading and writing correlated with age at onset of rehabilitation; no correlation emerged between socioeconomic status and children's early literacy skills. The results suggest that gaps in the academic achievements associated with literacy between children with and without hearing loss, as well as between children with hearing loss enrolled in different inclusive programs, already appear in kindergarten. Focusing on training and improvement of pre-literacy capabilities in kindergarten may decrease those gaps.
The difficulties for students with hearing loss in gaining proficient literacy skills are well documented. However, studies describing the nature and variability of emergent literacy skills for students with hearing loss or the rate at which progress occurs at young ages are limited. We assessed emergent literacy skills and outcomes at the beginning and end of a school year for 44 young children (mean age = 5.2 years) who are deaf and hard of hearing and who had some speech perception skills. These children generally showed gains similar to their peers with typical hearing in knowledge of letter names and common written words, but lagged in phonological awareness skills. Correlational analyses suggest that these skills were systematically related to the children's literacy development, similar to what has been found in children with typical hearing. The results show that children participating in this study progressed on some phonological awareness skills (alliteration, blending, and elision) but not on others (rhyming, syllable segmentation). This article discusses the relevance of the findings for an emergent literacy curriculum.
The authors examined the development of oral language and decoding skills from preschool to early elementary school and their relation to beginning reading comprehension using a cross-sequential design. Four- and 6-year-old children were tested on oral language and decoding skills and were retested 2 years later. In all age groups, oral language and decoding skills formed distinct clusters. The 2 clusters were related to each other in preschool, but this relation became weaker in kindergarten and 2nd grade. Structural equation modeling showed that both sets of skills in 2nd grade independently predicted a child’s reading comprehension. These findings confirm and extend the view that the 2 clusters of skills develop early in a child’s life and contribute to reading comprehension activities in early elementary school, with each cluster making a considerable, unique contribution. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This article reports on 2 studies with kindergarten and first-grade children from a low-achieving elementary school that provided vocabulary instruction by the students' regular classroom teacher of sophisticated words (advanced vocabulary words) from children's trade books that are typically read aloud. Study 1 compared the number of sophisticated words learned between 52 children who were directly taught the words and 46 children who received no instruction. As expected, children in the experimental group learned significantly more words. Study 2, a within-subject design, examined 76 children's learning of words under 2 different amounts of instruction, either 3 days or 6 days. In Study 2, the vocabulary gains in kindergarten and first-grade children for words that received more instruction were twice as large. Student vocabulary was assessed by a picture test where students were presented with pictures that represented different words and were asked to identify which picture represented the word that the tester provided. The verbal test was similar but used a sentence description of a scenario instead of a picture. The instructional implications for which words to teach and how to teach them to young children are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The purpose of this study was to investigate early literacy acquisition in a phonologically transparent orthography with regular letter-sound correspondences. It was considered that Turkish, with its systematic phonological and orthographic structure, would make different demands on the beginning reader than the languages used in many of the previous studies of literacy acquisition. First grade children were assessed using tests of phonological awareness, letter recognition, word and pseudoword recognition, spelling, syntactic awareness, and listening comprehension at the beginning of the school year. The impact of these factors on the development of word recognition, spelling, and reading comprehension was examined. The results strongly suggest that a phonologically transparent orthography fosters the early development of word recognition skills, and that phonological awareness contributes to word recognition in the early stages of reading acquisition. Once the children's word recognition performance is high, listening comprehension ability distinguishes the different levels of reading comprehension among children. These patterns of results were interpreted as reflecting the phonological and orthographic characteristics of the Turkish language and orthography.
Childhood hearing loss presents challenges to language development, especially spoken language. In this article, we review existing literature on deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children's patterns and trajectories of language as well as development of theory of mind and literacy. Individual trajectories vary significantly, reflecting access to early identification/intervention, advanced technologies (e.g., cochlear implants), and perceptually accessible language models. DHH children develop sign language in a similar manner as hearing children develop spoken language, provided they are in a language-rich environment. This occurs naturally for DHH children of deaf parents, who constitute 5% of the deaf population. For DHH children of hearing parents, sign language development depends on the age that they are exposed to a perceptually accessible 1st language as well as the richness of input. Most DHH children are born to hearing families who have spoken language as a goal, and such development is now feasible for many children. Some DHH children develop spoken language in bilingual (sign-spoken language) contexts. For the majority of DHH children, spoken language development occurs in either auditory-only contexts or with sign supports. Although developmental trajectories of DHH children with hearing parents have improved with early identification and appropriate interventions, the majority of children are still delayed compared with hearing children. These DHH children show particular weaknesses in the development of grammar. Language deficits and differences have cascading effects in language-related areas of development, such as theory of mind and literacy development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).
Phonological awareness is one of the critical skills in the acquisition of reading in an alphabetic orthography. The development of phonological awareness was compared across Turkish and English-speaking kindergarten and first-grade children (n = 138). The Turkish-speakers were more proficient in both handling of the syllables and deleting final phonemes of words. These patterns were related to the characteristics of the respective spoken languages (such as the saliency of the syllable, familiarity of the nonword patterns, importance of onset or final phoneme deletion, importance of vowel harmony) and the development of phonological awareness was discussed as a function of the characteristics of spoken language, orthography and literacy instruction.
The study examined: (a) the role of phonological, grammatical, and rapid automatized naming (RAN) skills in reading and spelling
development; and (b) the component processes of early narrative writing skills. Fifty-seven Turkish-speaking children were
followed from Grade 1 to Grade 2. RAN was the most powerful longitudinal predictor of reading speed and its effect was evident
even when previous reading skills were taken into account. Broadly, the phonological and grammatical skills made reliable
contributions to spelling performance but their effects were completely mediated by previous spelling skills. Different aspects
of the narrative writing skills were related to different processing skills. While handwriting speed predicted writing fluency,
spelling accuracy predicted spelling error rate. Vocabulary and working memory were the only reliable longitudinal predictors
of the quality of composition content. The overall model, however, failed to explain any reliable variance in the structural
quality of the compositions.
KeywordsReading-Narrative writing-Grammatical awareness-Phonological awareness-RAN-Spelling
The authors report a systematic meta-analytic review of the relationships among 3 of the most widely studied measures of children's phonological skills (phonemic awareness, rime awareness, and verbal short-term memory) and children's word reading skills. The review included both extreme group studies and correlational studies with unselected samples (235 studies were included, and 995 effect sizes were calculated). Results from extreme group comparisons indicated that children with dyslexia show a large deficit on phonemic awareness in relation to typically developing children of the same age (pooled effect size estimate: -1.37) and children matched on reading level (pooled effect size estimate: -0.57). There were significantly smaller group deficits on both rime awareness and verbal short-term memory (pooled effect size estimates: rime skills in relation to age-matched controls, -0.93, and reading-level controls, -0.37; verbal short-term memory skills in relation to age-matched controls, -0.71, and reading-level controls, -0.09). Analyses of studies of unselected samples showed that phonemic awareness was the strongest correlate of individual differences in word reading ability and that this effect remained reliable after controlling for variations in both verbal short-term memory and rime awareness. These findings support the pivotal role of phonemic awareness as a predictor of individual differences in reading development. We discuss whether such a relationship is a causal one and the implications of research in this area for current approaches to the teaching of reading and interventions for children with reading difficulties.
This case report details a year-long phonological awareness (PA) intervention for pre-kindergarten children with hearing loss (CHL) who use listening and spoken language. All children wore cochlear implants and/or hearing aids. Intervention occurred for 15 min/day, 4 days per week across the pre-kindergarten school year and was delivered by classroom teachers of the deaf. At the beginning of the year, children's performance on measures of PA generally was low. After participating in the intervention, the majority of students performed within or above the developmental range. These findings indicate that PA training that is intense, modified for CHL, and transferable to mainstream setting is effective in increasing PA skills in CHL.
The last 30 years have seen remarkable innovation in communication technology. People who are deaf or hard of hearing have benefited enormously from new communication products and services. The great strides industry has made in data-processing power, miniaturization, and digitization of previously analog technologies, plus the rapid growth of the Internet, mobile networks, and broadband services have resulted in significant improvement in both visual communication technologies and those designed to restore or enhance hearing. Electronic mail, text messaging, the World Wide Web, and smartphones have altered the communication habits of billions of people, with the result that deaf and hard of hearing people can communicate directly with hearing friends, family, coworkers, and businesses using common technologies. Fast processing in small chips has led to improved hearing aids and cochlear implants. Concurrent with these developments, new public policies have required companies in the communications industries to improve the accessibility of their products. This chapter describes key developments in a wide range of communication technologies used by deaf and hard-of-hearing people, and concentrates on the 1990s and beyond. The first section of the chapter focuses on visual access to communication technologies, and the second section addresses developments in hearing-related technologies such as hearing aids, cochlear implants, and assistive listening devices.
This article employs meta-analysis procedures to evaluate whether children with cochlear implants demonstrate lower spoken-language
vocabulary knowledge than peers with normal hearing. Of the 754 articles screened and 52 articles coded, 12 articles met predetermined
inclusion criteria (with an additional 5 included for one analysis). Effect sizes were calculated for relevant studies and
forest plots were used to compare differences between groups of children with normal hearing and children with cochlear implants.
Weighted effect size averages for expressive vocabulary measures (g = −11.99; p < .001) and for receptive vocabulary measures (g = −20.33; p < .001) indicated that children with cochlear implants demonstrate lower vocabulary knowledge than children with normal hearing.
Additional analyses confirmed the value of comparing vocabulary knowledge of children with hearing loss to a tightly matched
(e.g., socioeconomic status-matched) sample. Age of implantation, duration of implantation, and chronological age at testing
were not significantly related to magnitude of weighted effect size. Findings from this analysis represent a first step toward
resolving discrepancies in the vocabulary knowledge literature.
Objectives:
This study examined the language outcomes of children with mild to severe hearing loss during the preschool years. The longitudinal design was leveraged to test whether language growth trajectories were associated with degree of hearing loss and whether aided hearing influenced language growth in a systematic manner. The study also explored the influence of the timing of hearing aid fitting and extent of use on children's language growth. Finally, the study tested the hypothesis that morphosyntax may be at particular risk due to the demands it places on the processing of fine details in the linguistic input.
Design:
The full cohort of children in this study comprised 290 children who were hard of hearing (CHH) and 112 children with normal hearing who participated in the Outcomes of Children with Hearing Loss (OCHL) study between the ages of 2 and 6 years. CHH had a mean better-ear pure-tone average of 47.66 dB HL (SD = 13.35). All children received a comprehensive battery of language measures at annual intervals, including standardized tests, parent-report measures, and spontaneous and elicited language samples. Principal components analysis supported the use of a single composite language score for each of the age levels (2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 years). Measures of unaided (better-ear pure-tone average, speech intelligibility index) and aided (residualized speech intelligibility index) hearing were collected, along with parent-report measures of daily hearing aid use time. Mixed modeling procedures were applied to examine the rate of change (227 CHH; 94 children with normal hearing) in language ability over time in relation to (1) degree of hearing loss, (2) aided hearing, (3) age of hearing aid fit and duration of use, and (4) daily hearing aid use. Principal components analysis was also employed to examine factor loadings from spontaneous language samples and to test their correspondence with standardized measures. Multiple regression analysis was used to test for differential effects of hearing loss on morphosyntax and lexical development.
Results:
Children with mild to severe hearing loss, on average, showed depressed language levels compared with peers with normal hearing who were matched on age and socioeconomic status. The degree to which CHH fell behind increased with greater severity of hearing loss. The amount of improved audibility with hearing aids was associated with differential rates of language growth; better audibility was associated with faster rates of language growth in the preschool years. Children fit early with hearing aids had better early language achievement than children fit later. However, children who were fit after 18 months of age improved in their language abilities as a function of the duration of hearing aid use. These results suggest that the language learning system remains open to experience provided by improved access to linguistic input. Performance in the domain of morphosyntax was found to be more delayed in CHH than their semantic abilities.
Conclusion:
The data obtained in this study largely support the predictions, suggesting that mild to severe hearing loss places children at risk for delays in language development. Risks are moderated by the provision of early and consistent access to well-fit hearing aids that provide optimized audibility.
Measures of print knowledge were compared across preschoolers with hearing loss and normal hearing. Alphabet knowledge did not differ between groups, but preschoolers with hearing loss performed lower on measures of print concepts and concepts of written words than preschoolers with normal hearing. Further study is needed in this area.
Letter name knowledge in the preschool ages is a strong predictor of later reading ability, but little is known about the psychometric characteristics of uppercase and lowercase letters considered together. Data from 1,113 preschoolers from diverse backgrounds on both uppercase and lowercase letter name knowledge were analyzed using Item Response Theory. Results indicated that uppercase and lowercase form a single dimension. Uppercase letters tended to be easier and more discriminating but had a narrow range of difficulty. Visual confusability (e.g., b vs. d) was an important aspect of both discrimination and difficulty. Including lowercase letters in the assessment of letter name knowledge increases its range to enable effective measurement of children with higher ability. A practical implication is that assessments of letter name knowledge can have fewer items and measure an extended range of ability while maintaining high levels of reliability.
Importance
Hearing loss (HL) in children can be deleterious to their speech and language development. The standard of practice has been early provision of hearing aids (HAs) to moderate these effects; however, there have been few empirical studies evaluating the effectiveness of this practice on speech and language development among children with mild-to-severe HL.Objective
To investigate the contributions of aided hearing and duration of HA use to speech and language outcomes in children with mild-to-severe HL.Design, Setting, and Participants
An observational cross-sectional design was used to examine the association of aided hearing levels and length of HA use with levels of speech and language outcomes. One hundred eighty 3- and 5-year-old children with HL were recruited through records of Universal Newborn Hearing Screening and referrals from clinical service providers in the general community in 6 US states.Interventions
All but 4 children had been fitted with HAs, and measures of aided hearing and the duration of HA use were obtained.Main Outcomes and Measures
Standardized measures of speech and language ability were obtained.Results
Measures of the gain in hearing ability for speech provided by the HA were significantly correlated with levels of speech (ρ179 = 0.20; P = .008) and language: ρ155 = 0.21; P = .01) ability. These correlations were indicative of modest levels of association between aided hearing and speech and language outcomes. These benefits were found for children with mild and moderate-to-severe HL. In addition, the amount of benefit from aided hearing interacted with the duration of HA experience (Speech: F4,161 = 4.98; P < .001; Language: F4,138 = 2.91; P < .02). Longer duration of HA experience was most beneficial for children who had the best aided hearing. Conclusions and Relevance
The degree of improved hearing provided by HAs was associated with better speech and language development in children. In addition, the duration of HA experience interacted with the aided hearing to influence outcomes. These results provide support for the provision of well-fitted HAs to children with HL. In particular, the findings support early HA fitting and HA provision to children with mild HL.
This research investigated the concurrent association between early reading skills and phonological awareness (PA), print knowledge, language, cognitive, and demographic variables in 101 5-year-old children with prelingual hearing losses ranging from mild to profound who communicated primarily using spoken language. All participants were fitted with hearing aids (n = 71) or cochlear implants (n = 30). They completed standardized assessments of PA, receptive vocabulary, letter knowledge, word and non-word reading, passage comprehension, math reasoning, and nonverbal cognitive ability. Multiple regressions revealed that PA (assessed using judgments of similarity based on words' initial or final sounds) made a significant, independent contribution to children's early reading ability (for both letters and words/non-words) after controlling for variation in receptive vocabulary, nonverbal cognitive ability, and a range of demographic variables (including gender, degree of hearing loss, communication mode, type of sensory device, age at fitting of sensory devices, and level of maternal education). Importantly, the relationship between PA and reading was specific to reading and did not generalize to another academic ability, math reasoning. Additional multiple regressions showed that letter knowledge (names or sounds) was superior in children whose mothers had undertaken post-secondary education, and that better receptive vocabulary was associated with less severe hearing loss, use of a cochlear implant, and earlier age at implant switch-on. Earlier fitting of hearing aids or cochlear implants was not, however, significantly associated with better PA or reading outcomes in this cohort of children, most of whom were fitted with sensory devices before 3 years of age.
Early literacy interventions have demonstrated that pedagogically sound programmes can boost reading achievement for students who do not succeed in early literacy learning. However, there is less evidence as to what extent gains are maintained in subsequent years or the factors which may contribute to sustained progress. The research reported in this article employed a cross-sectional design to investigate the achievement of students who had previously participated in Reading Recovery. Two to four years after successfully completing the intervention, students were assessed in reading and writing by using standardised assessment tools. Although 60% of students had retained parity in reading in comparison with their age cohort, 40% were markedly below the mean of the cohort and the national norm. Data from case study schools provide some initial suggestions for school implementation factors which affect continued success. Conclusions regarding the need to plan for sustainability of gains following early intervention are made.
Introduction/Objective
Cochlear implantation provides children with a significant hearing loss the potential to engage in phonological processing via audition; however these children can still have poor or inadequately detailed mental (phonological) representations of speech and as such phonological awareness and reading difficulties. Heterogeneous participant profiles, particularly varying modes of communication have clouded the research regarding reading outcomes of children using a cochlear implant. The objective of this study was to explore the relationships between word reading and reading comprehension outcomes, and a range of variables of a relatively homogenous group of children using cochlear implants.
Method
Forty-seven oral communicating children using a cochlear implant and who had attended Auditory-Verbal Therapy served as participants. They were administered a comprehensive battery of 10 different assessments covering 22 different tasks across the domains of speech perception, speech production, language, phonological processing and reading. Correlation and principal component analyses were used to examine the relationships between outcome areas.
Results
Audiologic and demographic variables were not significantly related to reading outcomes, with the exception of family size. Language and word reading were most strongly related to reading comprehension, while phonological awareness and language were most strongly related to word reading. It is proposed that the development of well-specified phonological representations might underlie these relationships.
Conclusion
For oral communicating children using a cochlear implant, good reading outcomes are linked to better language and phonological processing abilities.
Spoken language skills of 3- and 6-year-old children who are hard of hearing (HH) were compared to those of children with normal hearing (NH).
Language skills were measured via MLU in words and percent correct use of finite verb morphology in obligatory contexts based on spontaneous conversational samples gathered from 185 children (145 HH; 40 NH). Aided speech intelligibility index (aided SII), better ear pure tone average (BE-PTA), maternal education, and age of amplification were used to predict outcomes within the HH group.
On average, the HH group had MLUws that were .25-.5 words shorter than the NH group at both ages and they produced fewer obligatory verb morphemes. After age, aided SII and age of amplification predicted MLUw. Aided SII and PTA were not interchangeable in this analysis. Age followed by either PTA or aided SII best predicted verb morphology use.
Children who are HH lag behind their NH peers in grammatical aspects of language. Although some children appear to catch up, more than half the children who were HH fell below the 25(th) percentile. Continued monitoring of language outcomes is warranted since children who are HH are at increased risk for language learning difficulties.
This paper describes an applied training study which investigated the differential effects of two instructional methods on the reading performance of primary school children with reading difficulties. Sixty five children aged 7-10 participated. Twenty five children were assigned to each of two experimental groups: direct instruction in phonological awareness and the alphabetic principle, or the same direct instruction in phonological awareness in conjunction with training in specific metalinguistic concepts and metacognitive strategies. Fifteen children were selected as controls. Reading performance from baseline was measured within a pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest experimental design. Data and results are presented on 60 children owing to attrition. Results showed that direct instruction in phonological awareness improved the reading performance of children with reading difficulties over time. However, direct instruction in phonological awareness in conjunction with explicit training in specific metalinguistic concepts and metacognitive strategies was more advantageous overall.
Purpose: To: (a) familiarize readers with the components of emergent literacy and the impact hearing loss may have on the development of these skills; (b) demonstrate the importance of parent-professional collaboration and show how specific literacy-based activities can be integrated into existing daily routines and intervention programming; (c) discuss how literacy-based activities can be modified to simultaneously target auditory and listening development.
Method: The paper begins with a narrative review of the current literature on the components of emergent literacy and development of this skill in children with hearing loss. Within this review, auditory-based strategies that may be used to facilitate emergent literacy in children with hearing loss who use spoken communication are described. Readers are directed to contact the authors for more detailed examples of activities and strategies.
Conclusions: Building emergent literacy skills in children with hearing loss is contingent upon parents and professionals collaborating to develop specific literacy-based activities that can be incorporated into children’s existing speech and language programs and daily routines. These activities can be tailored to meet the individual needs of children with hearing loss and simultaneously address clinically relevant goals that maximize the development of auditory and listening skills.
Emergent literacy can be viewed as skills that are precursors to later reading and writing (Sulzby & Teale, 1991) or can be more broadly conceptualized as literacy acquisition that occurs along a developmental continuum. Because children with disabilities, such as visual impairments, can be at risk for later reading difficulties, it is critical that emergent literacy skills are nurtured in home and early education environments. Unfortunately, children who have visual impairments frequently are not provided access to the same early literacy learning opportunities as children with typical development, even when attending literacy-rich preschool classrooms. This article describes specific strategies that early childhood educators can use in inclusive settings to: (1) provide exposure and access to braille and large print reading and writing materials in the classroom environment, (2) facilitate engagement in literacy activities, and (3) make curriculum modifications to support the specific literacy skill needs of young children with visual impairments. (Contains 1 footnote and 3 tables.)
The role of vocabulary growth in the development of two reading-related phonological processes was examined. In Experiments 1 and 2, 4- and 5-year-olds and a sample of first graders performed better on phonological awareness tasks for word versus pseudoword stimuli, and for highly familiar versus less familiar words. Three- and 4-year-olds in Experiment 3 performed better for words with many versus few similarly sounding items in a listener's lexicon. Vocabulary was strongly associated with nonword repetition scores for 3- to 5-year olds. The shared variance of this association was accounted for by phonological awareness measures and did not appear to be due to phonological short-term memory, as previously argued. The author proposes that vocabulary growth, defined in terms of absolute size, word familiarity, and phonological similarity relations between word items, helps to explain individual differences in emerging phonological awareness and nonword repetition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Many preschool children are at risk for reading problems because of inadequate emergent literacy skills. Evidence supports the effectiveness of interventions to promote these skills, but questions remain about which intervention components work and whether combining intervention components will result in larger gains. In this study, 324 preschoolers (mean age=54.32months, SD=5.88) from low-income backgrounds (46% girls and 54% boys; 82% African American, 14% White, and 4% other) were randomized to combinations of meaning-focused (dialogic reading or shared reading) and code-focused (phonological awareness, letter knowledge, or both) interventions or a control group. Interventions had statistically significant positive impacts only on measures of their respective skill domains. Combinations of interventions did not enhance outcomes across domains, indicating instructional needs in all areas of weakness for young children at risk for later reading difficulties. Less time for each intervention in the combined phonological awareness and letter knowledge intervention conditions, however, did not result in reduced effects relative to nearly twice as much time for each intervention when children received either only the phonological awareness intervention or only the letter knowledge intervention. This finding suggests that a relatively compact code-focused intervention can address the needs of children with weaknesses in both domains.
Phonological awareness skills are prerequisite to early reading, yet the development of phonological awareness is an understudied phenomenon. To identify factors that contribute to the development of phonological awareness, we investigated the longitudinal relationships among child background factors, structural oral language, and phonological awareness in a sample of 52 children from kindergarten to second grade and a subsample of this group who were nonreaders in kindergarten. Background measures were IQ, family literacy, socioeconomic status, and child's primary language; oral language measures were receptive and expressive semantics, syntax, and morphology; phonological awareness was measured by segmentation and blending. Principal component analysis of the structural language measures yielded a general oral language factor score. Regression analyses indicated that the background variables were unique predictors of kindergarten general oral language skill but did not predict phonological awareness skills. General oral language accounted for significant and substantial unique variance in phonological awareness each year for both the full sample and the subsample of nonreaders, controlling for reading ability. These findings suggest general oral language may contribute to the development of early reading through its significant influence on the development of phonological awareness.
Letter names bridge the gap between oral and written language among English speaking children. This study examined whether letter names have a similar function in Hebrew. Despite their common historical source, Hebrew letter names differ from English: they are longer and not as regular phonologically. However, they follow the acrophonic principle, unlike many English letter names. Israeli kindergartners, whose mother tongue was Hebrew, were asked to orally provide initial or final letters of spoken words, to spell words in writing, and to select one written word out of two as standing for an oral word. First graders were tested on orally providing the initial letter and spelling. Children were found to rely on letter names in performing all these tasks. They succeeded more in providing the initial letter or in spelling it if the word started with a letter-name sequence, like kaftor (button), which is spelled with k (Kaf). They succeeded more in selecting the correct word between two if the words started with a letter-name sequence. In grade 1 the effects decreased and became limited particularly to phonemes spelled with homophonic letters. Partial letter names (impossible in English) affected performance but to a lesser extent than entire names. Reliance on letter names both facilitated and impaired performance but in different ways than in English. The educational implications are discussed.
This study used eye-gaze analysis to determine the extent to which pre-school children visually attended to print when looking at two storybooks, to contrast visual attention to print for a print-salient versus a picture-salient storybook, and to study individual differences in pre-schoolers' visual preferences. Results indicated that pre-school children infrequently attended to print: in a traditional picture-salient storybook, 2.7% of their fixations focused on print and 2.5% of their time was spent looking in regions of print. The children fixated more frequently on print and spent more time looking in print regions when reading a print-salient storybook, within which 7% of fixations focused on print and 6% of time was spent in print zones. Effect size estimates showed this difference to be consistent with a very large effect. Little variation in visual attention to print was observed across the ten children, and children's alphabet knowledge was not associated with the variance in children's visual attention to print. Educational implications are discussed.
Research has found that many children andadolescents with Down syndrome acquire somelevel of reading ability. Studies to date havedocumented that cognition, language, andphonological awareness contribute tovariability observed in performance onconventional literacy measures for thispopulation, although the extent of relativecontributions varies among studies. Less isknown about the relationship of early literacyskills to conventional reading, or howrelationships among variables that supportliteracy acquisition are similar or differentfrom those observed in typically developingchildren. In this project, cognition,language, early literacy, phonologicalawareness and reading skills were examined in agroup of children and adolescents with Downsyndrome (aged 5;06 to 17;03) and a group oftypically developing children (aged 3;06 to5;03) matched for nonverbal cognition. Resultsrevealed broad variability in performance onearly literacy and reading measures in personswith Down syndrome. Comparisons with mental age-matchedchildren indicated differences in the relativecontribution of language and cognition toreading ability, with language being a strongerpredictor in the group with Down syndrome.
: A key ingredient to academic success is being able to read. Deaf individuals have historically failed to develop literacy skills comparable with those of their normal-hearing (NH) peers, but early identification and cochlear implants (CIs) have improved prospects such that these children can learn to read at the levels of their peers. The goal of this study was to examine early, or emergent, literacy in these children.
: Twenty-seven deaf children with CIs, who had just completed kindergarten were tested on emergent literacy, and on cognitive and linguistic skills that support emergent literacy, specifically ones involving phonological awareness, executive functioning, and oral language. Seventeen kindergartners with NH and eight with hearing loss, but who used hearing aids served as controls. Outcomes were compared for these three groups of children, regression analyses were performed to see whether predictor variables for emergent literacy differed for children with NH and those with CIs, and factors related to the early treatment of hearing loss and prosthesis configuration were examined for children with CIs.
: The performance of children with CIs was roughly 1 SD or more below the mean performance of children with NH on all tasks, except for syllable counting, reading fluency, and rapid serial naming. Oral language skills explained more variance in emergent literacy for children with CIs than for children with NH. Age of first implant explained moderate amounts of variance for several measures. Having one or two CIs had no effect, but children who had some amount of bimodal experience outperformed children who had none on several measures.
: Even deaf children who have benefitted from early identification, intervention, and implantation are still at risk for problems with emergent literacy that could affect their academic success. This finding means that intensive language support needs to continue through at least the early elementary grades. Also, a period of bimodal stimulation during the preschool years can help boost emergent literacy skills to some extent.
Although deaf children with cochlear implants (CIs) are able to develop good language skills, the large variability in outcomes remains a significant concern. The first aim of this study was to evaluate language skills in children with CIs to establish benchmarks. The second aim was to make an estimation of the optimal age at implantation to provide maximal opportunities for the child to achieve good language skills afterward. The third aim was to gain more insight into the causes of variability to set recommendations for optimizing the rehabilitation process of prelingually deaf children with CIs.
Receptive and expressive language development of 288 children who received CIs by age five was analyzed in a retrospective multicenter study. Outcome measures were language quotients (LQs) on the Reynell Developmental Language Scales and Schlichting Expressive Language Test at 1, 2, and 3 years after implantation. Independent predictive variables were nine child-related, environmental, and auditory factors. A series of multiple regression analyses determined the amount of variance in expressive and receptive language outcomes attributable to each predictor when controlling for the other variables.
Simple linear regressions with age at first fitting and independent samples t tests demonstrated that children implanted before the age of two performed significantly better on all tests than children who were implanted at an older age. The mean LQ was 0.78 with an SD of 0.18. A child with an LQ lower than 0.60 (= 0.78-0.18) within 3 years after implantation was labeled as a weak performer compared with other deaf children implanted before the age of two. Contralateral stimulation with a second CI or a hearing aid and the absence of additional disabilities were related to better language outcomes. The effect of environmental factors, comprising multilingualism, parental involvement, and communication mode increased over time. Three years after implantation, the total multiple regression model accounted for 52% of the variance in receptive language scores and 58% of the variance in expressive language scores.
On the basis of language test scores of this large group of children, an LQ of 0.60 or lower was considered a risk criterion for problematic language development compared with other deaf children using CIs. Children attaining LQs below 0.60 should be monitored more closely and perhaps their rehabilitation programs should be reconsidered. Improved language outcomes were related to implantation under the age of two, contralateral stimulation, monolingualism, sufficient involvement of the parents, and oral communication by the parents. The presence of an additional learning disability had a negative influence on language development. Understanding these causes of variation can help clinicians and parents to create the best possible circumstances for children with CIs to acquire language.