Psychosocial development of 5-year-old children with hearing loss: Risks and protective factors.
Cara L Wong, Teresa Y Ching, Greg Leigh and 6 others
PMID 27541363WHAT IT FOUND
Most 5-year-old children with hearing loss scored within the typical range for social and emotional functioning, but about 12% were far below the norm.
Better language and everyday communication, not hearing device or age at fitting, were strongest protective factors.
Key findings
01On average, the children were within the typical range for global psychosocial functioning, but approximately 12% were more than 2 standard deviations below the norm.
02Better language and functional communication were strongly associated with better global psychosocial functioning, and functional communication was more strongly linked than the standardised language test.
03Hearing device, severity of hearing loss and age at intervention did not significantly predict psychosocial outcomes.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Psychosocial outcomes were based on parent reports only, not teacher or child self-reports. Many questionnaires had missing data because forms were not returned, and some children could not complete language or non-verbal cognitive testing. The CDI may require a reading level above the grade level of some parents, and its norms were mostly from white and working or middle class families, although translated versions were used for some families. The final model accounted for 32.2% of variance in global psychosocial functioning, so other factors were not measured or explained. Communication mode may partly reflect the child's oral language limitations rather than an independent family choice. The study reports outcomes at 5 years, before many children have experienced the full demands of formal schooling.
Declared interests
No conflict of interest or funding statement is included in the supplied article text. The supplied publication types list research support from NIH extramural and non-U.S. government sources.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the average normal-range result as reassurance that hearing loss no longer carries psychosocial risk. The scores varied widely, and approximately 12% of children were more than 2 standard deviations below the norm on the global psychosocial score.