This study examined the parental and spousal self-efficacy (SE) of adults who are deaf and who are hard of hearing (d/hh) in relation to their speech intelligibility. Forty individuals with hearing loss completed self-report measures: Spousal SE in a relationship with a spouse who was hearing/deaf, parental SE to a child who was hearing/deaf, and…

Recent developments in deaf education are influencing teacher preparation programs, which are facing challenges in meeting the critical need for highly qualified teachers. Of approximately 65 teacher preparation programs in the United States, 11 programs focus primarily on preparing teachers to work with children who are deaf or hard of hearing…

A longitudinal study reported positive speech and language outcomes for 29 children with hearing loss in an auditory-verbal therapy program (AVT group) (aged 2 to 6 years at start; mean PTA 79.39 dB HL) compared with a matched control group with typical hearing (TH group) at 9, 21, and 38 months after the start of the study. The current study…

With modern improvements to hearing aids and cochlear implant (CI) technology, and consequently improved access to speech, there has been greater emphasis on listening-based therapies for children with hearing loss, such as auditory-verbal therapy (AVT). Speech and language, speech perception in noise, and reading were evaluated before and after…

This study examined the speech perception, speech, and language developmental progress of 25 children with hearing loss (mean Pure-Tone Average [PTA] 79.37 dB HL) in an auditory verbal therapy program. Children were tested initially and then 21 months later on a battery of assessments. The speech and language results over time were compared with…

The difficulties encountered by students with hearing loss and special learning needs are often attributed exclusively to hearing loss, particularly when there are no other obvious physical or sensory handicaps. A Louisiana public school system has addressed this issue for the past 9 years and has included both regular and special education…

A case study of a child who was stimulated with a cochlear implant at age 25 months is reported. Postimplantation, nasals decreased and other consonant types increased, particularly alveolars. The vowel space expanded, including increased production of diphthongs. Serial organization of speech postimplantation mirrored basic motor propensities in…

The production and perception of syllable stress by 15 children (ages 10-13) with severe or profound hearing impairments were compared to 15 controls. Children with hearing loss had higher fundamental frequency, duration of syllables were longer across stressed and unstressed syllables, and they were less successful in conveying stress…

A study examined the conversation skills used by 10 kindergartens with hearing loss and 11 chronological age-matched hearing peers. Results indicate that there were no significant differences in the majority of the conversational skills used by the children with hearing loss and the children with normal hearing. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

Discusses English acquisition in children with severe to profound hearing impairments. Components that should be integrated during language acquisition are discussed and include phonology, semantics, morphology, syntax, and pragmatics. The mixture of learning conditions that influence the progress of language development in sign, speech, and text…

This study investigated the effect of speech intelligibility of children with severe/profound hearing losses on evaluations of personal qualities by 60 listeners who were either familiar with or not familiar with the speech of children with hearing impairments. Experienced listeners scored speakers' speech intelligibility, cognitive competence,…

This study of 461 Colorado students (ages 7-18) with deafness or partial hearing investigated the students' psychoeducational development by age and hearing loss, including syntactic comprehension and production, reading comprehension, social maturity, speech intelligibility, and math calculation skills. Traditional standardized measures of…

Discussed are the following three major areas which influence the design of individualized programs for deaf adolescents as well as their communication with the world-at-large: attitudes toward communication, understanding the speech of others, and communicating through speech. (BD)

The difficulties in acquiring speech skills that are encountered by severely and profoundly deaf children may be considered in terms of the complexity of the speech signal. (Author)