Characteristics of Early Expressive Vocabulary in Mandarin-Speaking Children With Cochlear Implants

The Contribution of Noun and Verb Lexicon Sizes to Later Grammatical Outcomes in Mandarin-Speaking Children With Cochlear Implants

PURPOSE

The present study evaluated the applicability of the sentence-focused framework to Mandarin-speaking children with cochlear implants (CIs) by examining the relative contribution of receptive/expressive noun and verb lexicon sizes to later grammatical complexity.

METHOD

Participants were 51 Mandarin-speaking children who received cochlear implantation before 30 months of age. At 12 months after CI activation, parents were asked to endorse words that their child could understand only or understand and say using the infant version of the Early Vocabulary Inventory. At 24 months after CI activation, parents were asked to endorse the grammatical structures that their children were able to say using the Grammatical Complexity subtest in the Mandarin Communicative Development Inventory-Taiwan. Children's receptive/expressive noun and verb lexicon sizes and grammatical complexity scores were computed from these parent checklists.

RESULTS

Correlational analyses showed that children's receptive/expressive noun and verb lexicon sizes at 12 months after CI activation were all highly correlated with their grammatical complexity scores at 24 months after CI activation (ρs = .52-.63, ps < .001). Regression analyses further revealed that verb lexicon sizes at 12 months after CI activation outweighed noun lexicon sizes in accounting for grammatical complexity at 24 months after CI activation.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings supported the prediction of the sentence-focused framework. Emphasizing the role of verbs in early intervention has the potential to enhance grammatical outcomes in Mandarin-speaking children with CIs.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.26129044.

Hearing aid wear time and its impact on vocabulary in preschoolers with moderately severe to profound hearing loss

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to explore how the consistency of hearing aid (HA) use impacts vocabulary performance in children with moderately severe to profound hearing loss and determine the amount of HA use time associated with better vocabulary outcomes.

DESIGN

Personal wear time percentage (WTP) was an indicator of HA use consistency, and the information on HA wear time was collected from both parent reports and datalogs. Pearson's correlations were performed to investigate the associations between hearing loss severity, WTP and vocabulary performance. Standard vocabulary scores among children below and above three WTP cutoff values (80%, 85%, and 90%) were examined to determine the WTP amount that yielded significantly better vocabulary outcomes.

STUDY SAMPLE

Forty-seven children aged 36-79 months and their caregivers.

RESULTS

Both parent reports and datalogs WTP significantly correlated with vocabulary outcomes. Parent-reported WTP were found to be predictive of datalogs WTP. Apart from hearing thresholds, HA fitting age and maternal education level, datalogs WTP was a significant independent predictor of vocabulary performance. Children with ≥ 90% WTP were more likely to perform better on vocabulary tests than those with < 90% WTP.

CONCLUSION

The findings support the potential benefits of consistent HA use for vocabulary development.