Comparison of the Speech Syntactic Features between Hearing-Impaired and Normal Hearing Children

INTRODUCTION: The present study seeks to describe and analyze the syntactic features of children with severely hearing loss who had access to the hearing aids compared with children with normal hearing, assigning them to the same separate gender classes. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In the present study, eight children with severe hearing impairment who used a hearing aid and eight hearing children matched for age and gender were selected using an available sampling method based on the principles of auditory-verbal approach. Hearing children had an average age of 5.45 ±1.9 years and subjects had a mean age of 5.43±2.17 years and their rehabilitation had begun before they were 18 months old. The assessment instrument of the study included the language development test, TOLDP-3. The syntactic skills of these children were analyzed and compared with the hearing children of the same age based on gender. RESULTS: There was a significant difference between the syntactic scores of the hearing-impaired children and the scores of the hearing children of the same age in the “sentence imitation” (t=−2/90, P<0/05) and “grammatical completion” (t=−3/39, P<0/05) subtests, with no significant difference in the “grammatical understanding” subtest (t=1/67, P>0/05). Moreover, there was no significant difference between male and female children with hearing impairment in terms of syntactic skills development. CONCLUSION: With early diagnosis and timely rehabilitating intervention, children with hearing loss can perform in a similar way to children of their age with normal hearing in some syntactical areas. Furthermore, the gender factor in the present study had no effect on the development of syntactical skills of children with hearing loss.