Early Development of Children With Hearing Loss

描述(由申请者提供)：本项目的长期目标是了解识别年龄(6个月之前、12-18个月之间或24-30个月之间)和沟通方式(纯口语或手语补充)如何影响听力损失(HL)幼儿(5岁以下)的口语、认知和心理社会发展。巧合的是，诊断新生儿HL的有效程序和人工耳蜗的出现激发了一种普遍的观点，即几乎所有的HL儿童都能发展良好的口语，但我们还没有就如何最好地促进这一发展达成一致，也不知道早期诊断或干预是否会对认知和/或心理社会发展造成“代价”。为了促进我们对这些问题的了解，6个牢房中的25名儿童(跨越3个识别年龄和2个交流模式)以及50名听力正常的儿童(NH)将根据识别年龄参加5至8次测试。收集的材料包括亲子互动、标准化语言和认知测量的样本，以及对父母问卷的回答。从这些材料中获得的数据对HL的研究来说是新的，但将反映出目前在NH儿童研究中使用的方法，并将包括言语声学、词汇、句法、话语、非语言认知能力、心理社会发展和父母压力的测量。结果将帮助服务于HL儿童的专业人员社区设计干预计划并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.