Consistency of hearing aid use, speech perception and vocabulary in hearing impaired children.
Marina Marques Dos Santos, Regiane Silva Pereira, Beatriz de Castro Andrade Mendes and 1 others
PMID 39536193WHAT IT FOUND
Better aided speech perception and auditory dosage, a combined measure of audibility and use, were linked to stronger vocabulary, but daily hours alone were not.
Key findings
01Better aided speech perception and higher auditory dosage were associated with stronger receptive vocabulary.
02Daily hearing aid hours alone showed no clear association with receptive vocabulary.
03Auditory dosage, which combines aided and unaided audibility with hours of use, was associated with receptive vocabulary.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study measured each child once, so it cannot show that hearing aid use causes vocabulary growth. With 29 children, and some analyses based on 24 or 28 children, the findings need cautious interpretation. The children had at least 56% aided speech intelligibility and were mostly oral language users, so results may not apply to children with poorer aided access or different communication modes. The PPVT was given with orofacial reading, so it measured vocabulary knowledge rather than auditory perception of the words. Some children in the lower vocabulary groups attended sign language school or did not use hearing aids, which may have affected their scores.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that increasing hearing aid hours alone will improve vocabulary. Daily hours alone showed no clear trend with receptive vocabulary, and auditory dosage combines hours with aided and unaided audibility.