Language Development In Children With Hearing Disabilities
The auditory system, as occurs in the rest of the sensory modalities, requires the input of sound stimulation to occur in a normative manner as long as its anatomical-functional development is carried out correctly. The auditory system is made up of three sets of structures.
Therefore, it is important prevent possible language development problems in girls and boys with hearing deficiencies, since this vital stage is key in the formation of cognitive processes that interact with the use of abstract concepts and words. In this article we will review several keys to take into account in this regard.
Linguistic development in children with hearing impairment
In the presence of a significant hearing impairment during childhood, linguistic ability can be affected in very variable ways Depending on the area most affected, a distinction can be made between vocabulary, grammar, articulation, fluency, comprehension, pronunciation, etc.
In addition to the type of impairment that the child presents, language development is also influenced by the nature and quality of the communicative environment that surrounds him, which is why greater linguistic ability seems to be achieved if the mother is a listener compared to the case in which both mother and son are deaf.
More specifically, with regard to how the linguistic development of the deaf child occurs It is observed that, during the first 9 months, these babies present a level of vocalization similar to that of non-deaf children. At that moment, discrepancies begin to be observed regarding the quantity and quality of the children’s oral productions. This is because the baby does not receive enough environmental reinforcements to encourage him to make these verbalizations.
Broadly speaking, it can be said that the development of a deaf child compared to another who is not deaf takes place following the same phases in both cases, although in the deaf child it occurs more slowly. Many difficulties are observed in the area of syntax, to the point that they do not master complex structures even at the age of 18 (a milestone that does occur in hearing boys at the age of 8). Thus, the content of the utterances is simpler, with less significant content in plurals, prepositions, conjunctions or pronouns, as well as alterations in elements of the sentence such as plurals, verb tenses or gender.
Pronunciation is intensely altered in relation to intonation, rhythm, time, etc., in addition to other serious syntactic distortions. Regarding understanding, the child must use visual cues that help him understand the stimulation received. They also use lip-facial reading and other complementary methods that facilitate the differentiation between lip movements shared by different phonemes or phonemes that do not have visible lip movements.
Differences in morphosyntactic development
The research that has attempted to study the differences that occur between the morphosyntactic development of a hearing child compared to another deaf child show that the second presents both deviations and delays in learning grammatical and morphosyntax, specifically.
In more detail, studies have found that Sentence length is significantly shorter in 17-year-old deaf boys compared to those that 8-year-old hearing children manage to construct. Related to this, it has been found that deaf children do not create complex sentences, unlike hearing 11-year-old children, who begin to master this ability.
Besides, The sentence constructions of children with hearing impairment are little syntactically varied and the use of adjectives, auxiliaries and conjunctions is observed to a lesser extent in contrast to a greater use of nouns and verbs (which can be attributed more meaning, making the evocation of the concept they represent more accessible), articles, Pronouns and prepositions are also scarce in non-hearing children. Thus, the greatest differences between one group and another refer to the use of the words “function”.
Another group of research has found three main conclusions in the comparison between hearing and deaf children: for the latter it is much more complex the application of structures that include pronouns, the conjugation of verbs and the formation of long sentences ; Deaf people do not reach complete language development at the age of 18, although the evolution of language learning is progressively positive for simple sentences (not so for complex ones); The largest number of errors are concentrated in the use of function words in the non-hearing group.
Finally, at a neurophysiological level, other studies aim to analyze the level of specialization in the left hemisphere through the activity recorded by evoked potentials after the presentation of certain lists of words.
The result obtained highlights a discrepancy in the brain area activated during this task between the hearing and the deaf: the left anterior brain areas were activated by the function words, while the posterior parietal areas, both in the right hemisphere and in the left, were activated for words with semantic content. Thus, it can be concluded that the ability to master morphosyntactic skills depends on the modality in which the linguistic stimulation received occurs.
Silvestre (1998) has proposed a list of conditions considered optimal so that it can learn oral language appropriately
1. Family involvement
A high frequency of exchanges between parents and children is recommended to enhance the stimulation received by it, ensuring a higher level of progress.
2. Early educational attention
In order to achieve the highest degree of development possible attending to sensitive periods of myelination and neuronal plasticity.
3. Correct hearing aid fitting
Essential for a correct interaction between the child and the environment.
4. Early hearing reeducation
Essential for compensate as much as possible for the deficiencies presented in each specific case.
5. Acquisition of lip-facial reading
It becomes a requirement for the understanding of the oral language received by the present interlocutor.
6. Communicative and cognitive development
Since there is a close relationship between organic and psychological development, action must be taken to prevent difficulties in the former (hearing impairment) from leading to harm in the latter (psychopathology or emotional or cognitive discomfort).
