Early Development of Children With Hearing Loss

描述（由申请人提供）：该项目的长期目标是了解识别年龄（6个月前，12 - 18个月，或24 - 30个月）和沟通方式（仅口语或手语辅助）如何影响听力损失幼儿（5岁以下）的口语，认知和社会心理发展。在新生儿中诊断HL的有效程序和人工耳蜗植入的巧合出现，促使人们普遍认为，几乎所有HL患儿都能发展良好的口语，但我们尚未就如何最好地促进这种发展达成一致，我们也不知道早期诊断或干预是否会对认知和/或社会心理发展造成“成本”。为了提高我们对这些问题的认识，6个单元（跨越3个识别年龄和2种交流模式）中每个单元的25名儿童以及50名听力正常的儿童（NH）将根据识别年龄参加5到8次测试。收集的材料将包括亲子互动的样本，标准化的语言和认知测量，以及对父母问卷的回应。从这些材料中获得的数据类型对HL的研究来说是新的，但将反映目前用于研究NH儿童的方法，并将包括语音声学、词汇、句法、话语、非语言认知能力、社会心理发展和父母压力的测量。研究结果将有助于为HL儿童服务的专业人员设计干预方案和选择评估进展的工具。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The long-term goal of this project is to understand how age of identification (before 6 mo, between 12 & 18 mo, or between 24 & 30 mo) and communication mode (spoken-only or sign-supplemented) affect spoken language, cognitive, and psychosocial development in young children (under 5 years) with hearing loss (HL). The coincidental advent of effective procedures for diagnosing HL in newborns and of cochlear implants has spurred the general perspective that virtually all children with HL can develop good spoken language, but we don't yet agree on how best to facilitate that development, nor do we know whether there is a "cost" to cognitive and/or psychosocial development imposed by early diagnosis or intervention. To advance our knowledge concerning these issues 25 children in each of 6 cells (crossing 3 ages of identification and 2 communication modes) as well as 50 children with normal hearing (NH) would participate in 5 to 8 test sessions, depending on age of identification. Materials collected would include samples of parent-child interactions, standardized language and cognitive measures, and responses to parental questionnaires. The kinds of data derived from these materials would be new to the study of HL but would reflect current methods used in the study of children with NH, and would include measures of speech acoustics, vocabulary, syntax, discourse, nonverbal cognitive abilities, psychosocial development, and parental stress. Results will help the community of professionals serving children with HL in designing intervention programs and in selecting tools to evaluate progress.