Abstract

OBJECTIVES
This study examined syntactic development of auditory comprehension of sentences in Japanese-speaking school-age children with and without hearing impairment.
METHODS
In total, 592 preschool and school-age children (421 normal-hearing and 171 hearing-impaired) were included in this cross-sectional observation study conducted using the Syntactic Processing Test for Aphasia for Japanese language users. Linear regression analysis was used to determine the estimated age at which each syntactic structure was acquired.
RESULTS
Acquisition of syntactic structures was observed in hearing-impaired and normal-hearing children. Basic word order sentences of agent-object-verb and the goal benefactive construction were acquired at preschool age (earlier group), whereas reverse word order sentences of object-agent-verb, source benefactive construction, passive voice, and relative clauses were acquired at school age (later group). The results showed that many hearing-impaired children may not acquire Japanese grammatical structures until the age of 12 years.
CONCLUSIONS
Adequate screening for language development for school-age hearing-impaired children is required for an effective intervention.

Authors

Fujiyoshi A, Fukushima K, Taguchi T, Omori K, Kasai N, Nishio S, Sugaya A, Nagayasu R, Konishi T, Sugishita S, Fujita J, Nishizaki K, Shiroma M

Institution

Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Okayama University Postgraduate School of Medicine, Dentistry, and Pharmaceutical Science, Okayama, Japan.

Source

The Annals of otology, rhinology & laryngology. Supplement 202: 2012 Apr pg 28-34

MeSH

Child
Child, Preschool
Comprehension
Early Intervention (Education)
Female
Hearing Loss
Humans
Japan
Language Development
Language Disorders
Language Tests
Male
Mass Screening
Speech Intelligibility
Vocabulary
Word Association Tests

Pub Type(s)

Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Language

eng

PubMed ID

22616277