COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT AND READING PERFORMANCE IN HEARING-IMPAIRED CHILDREN WITH HEARING AIDS

Lyxell B(1), Uhlén I (2), Sjödin C (2), Mårtensson I (2), Johansson A (2), Wass M (1).

University of Linköping, Swedish Institute for Disability Research HEAD, Sweden; (2) CLINTEC, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

The present study examines cognitive development and reading in hearing-impaired children with hearing aids. Cognitive development is assessed by tests of working memory (WM), phonological skills and lexical access. One basic assumption is that a hearing loss will have a negative impact on the development of these skills, that also will affect the development of reading ability. The results were analysed with respect to the number of correct answers as well as the time needed to produce an answer. Hearing-impaired children were compared with normal hearing children and deaf children with cochlear implants (CI). Children with hearing-impairment showed significantly lower scores than normal hearing children and the difference between the groups were most pronounced for test with relatively high demands on lexical and phonological processing. Children with hearing-impairment and deaf children with CI displayed a different pattern of results such that children with hearing-impairment performed better on phonological tasks, but poorer on tasks measuring reading comprehension.

E-mail: inger.uhlen@karolinska.se