Longitudinal study of speech perception, speech, and language for children with hearing loss in an auditory-verbal therapy program

This study examined the speech perception, speech, and language developmental progress of 25 children with hearing loss (mean Pure-Tone Average [PTA] 79.37 dB HL) in an auditory-verbal therapy program. Children were tested initially and then 21 months later on a battery of assessments. The speech and language results over time were compared with those for a control group of children with typical hearing who were matched for initial language age, receptive vocabulary, gender, and socioeconomic level. Speech perception scores for the children with hearing loss showed significant improvement (p < 0.05) for live-voice presentations, but not for recorded voice. For both groups there was significant improvement over 21 months in scores for auditory comprehension, oral expression, total language, and articulation of consonants (p < 0.001); the amount of improvement was not significantly different between groups (p > 0.05). At the 21-month test point, 84% of the children with hearing loss scored within the typical range for total language age, compared to 58.6% at the initial assessment. Receptive vocabulary scores were an exception, with the children with typical hearing showing significantly more gain than the children with hearing loss (p < 0.05). Nevertheless, the group with hearing loss scored within the typical range for receptive vocabulary. Overall, the results show that the children with hearing loss had improved speech perception skills over time and that their rate of progress for speech and language skills was similar to that of children with typical hearing.