The morphological and syntactical performance of hearing-impaired children

Abstract

Objectives: Communicative disorders of hearing-impaired children include poor speech perception, speech production and language competence. Limited research findings have been documented in the Mandarin Chinese morphological and syntactical performance of severely and profoundly hearing-impaired children. The objectives of this paper were to measure, document and compare the Chinese Mandarin Mean Length of Utterance in words (MLUw) and the syntactical patterns of spoken language between normal children and profoundly hearing-impaired children. Design: Thirty-five profoundly hearing-impaired children (68.14 M) were included as the experimental group of three age-groups, age 4, 5, 6; in contrast, sixty nine normal children (58.61M) served as the control group of three age-groups, age 3, 4, and 5. The Mandarin Chinese MLUw system of the language test and the speech perception test battery were the major measures of morphological and syntactical performance. Between-group and within-age group designs were used. The correlation of the MLUw performance with the language performance, age, speech perception, and degree of hearing loss was examined between groups. Results: The MLUw of the experimental group indicated 3.6 compared with 4.79 of the control group to demonstrate a significance level of difference at 0.001 level. The control group demonstrated a significant correlation of MLUw with age, language test and speech perception performance; however, the experimental group did not demonstrate a significant correlation of MLUw with age, speech perception and hearing thresholds. Noun phrase and simple sentence mainly represented the sentence structure of the experimental group. Conclusions: Mandarin Chinese MLUw was a suitable and effective measure of morphological and syntactical analysis for the hearing-impaired children. The difference between normal children and hearing-impaired children is substantial and should be carefully intervened.