Is Knowing Words Enough? Assessing Vocabulary in Children Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing.

Language samples were collected on one occasion, so they may not represent a child's usual speech, and personality, fatigue, or interest could have affected what the child said. The conversation topics and questioning style may have shaped the words children produced; different topics or more targeted questions might have elicited more varied vocabulary. The study compared language samples with tests of vocabulary breadth, not vocabulary depth, so it does not show how depth measures relate to conversation. The groups differed in mothers' education and nonverbal intelligence scores, although both group means were within the typical range. The sample was limited to preschool children aged 3;9 to 4;3 who used spoken English as their primary language, and all children who are deaf or hard of hearing used hearing aids or cochlear implants.

The study was supported by National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders grants R03DC014535 and R01DC017173. Data were collected and managed using REDCap tools at the University of South Carolina. The authors state the content is solely their responsibility and does not necessarily represent the views of the National Institutes of Health.

Do not conclude that a preschool child who is deaf or hard of hearing and scores above average on a vocabulary test necessarily produces varied words in conversation. In this study, some children above the 50th percentile, including some above the 90th percentile, produced relatively few unique nouns and verbs.