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Purpose: The purpose of this pilot study was to explore the home language environment and language outcome of Brazilian toddlers who were hard of hearing, (HH) and controls with typical hearing (TH), and investigate the reliability of using the LENA recording system within a Brazilian Portuguese context., Methods: Fourteen families participated in the study (seven children who were HH and seven controls with TH. Each family contributed with one all-day recording. A smaller portion of the recordings of the typically hearing toddlers were manually transcribed by two transcribers. An interrater agreement was conducted, and then the human transcript results were compared against the LENA-generated data for three measures: Adult Words (AW), Child Vocalizations (CV) and Conversational Turns (CT)., Results: Data analyses revealed a moderate to strong interrater agreement for CV and AW. Weak to moderate agreement was found between the LENA estimates and the means of the human counts for CV and AW. Seemingly, LENA overestimated human counts for AW and underestimated numbers of CV. Comparative analysis suggested similarities in the language and listening environment of the two groups (TH vs. HoH). Children's language development was supported by higher numbers of parent-child interactions (CT)., Conclusion: The findings imply that LENA may contribute as an ecologically valid tool in preventive family-centered intervention programs for Brazilian toddlers who are hard of hearing and their families, although further validation studies are needed.

Purpose: Shared parenting among caregivers of different gender is common in the Swedish society. It is unclear if this includes shared contribution for children's language development. The objective of this cross-sectional study was to explore the natural language environment of children who were hard-of-hearing compared to typically hearing controls., Methods: Seventy-two families with children aged 7-35 months participated; 22 children who were hard-of-hearing (Cochlear implants, n=11; Hearing aids, n=11) and 50 controls with typical hearing. The majority of caregivers had higher education background level, especially in the control group. Families conducted a daylong recording with the Language Environment Analysis technology, when both parents were present at home. An Interpreted Time Segmental analysis was performed to extract information about female versus male caregivers quantitative word use., Results: The results showed significant gender differences related to number of adult words, with less male words than female words (p <0.001). Male caregivers of children who were hard-of-hearing contributed with around 27 % of adult words during the recordings while males in the control group contributed with 37 %. There was a larger variation in number of female words in the study group than for controls, especially in mothers of children with cochlear implants., Conclusions: Female caregivers talk significantly more close to young children than male caregivers, and especially in the subgroup of children with cochlear implants. Children who are hard-of-hearing are dependent on a rich language environment, and might be especially vulnerable if male caregivers are less involved as language facilitators. More studies are needed to explore caregiver gender differences, both related to quantitative and qualitative language stimulation., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Objective: To investigate early auditory prerequisites in relation to the use of canonical babbling (CB) and early consonant production in a heterogeneous group of children with hearing impairment (HI) and in comparison to controls with normal hearing (NH). Methods: Five children with unilateral or bilateral HI who used hearing aids (HA) (0;9-1;7 years) and six children with cochlear implants (CI) (0;10-2;0 years) were compared to data from 22 children with NH (0;10-1;6 years). Hearing age, type of HI and daily use of hearing technology (hours) was investigated in relation to CB ratio and consonant production. Analysis of babbling from video recordings during verbal interaction between a parent and child was independently performed by two observers. Intra- and inter-agreement were calculated. Results: Children with HI used less CB compared to children with NH. Less CB utterances and occurrences of dental/alveolar stops were found in children with HA who had a hearing age of 5 months and who used their hearing technology 5 h per day. The children with CI reached an expected CB ratio and consonant production after 8.5 months with daily fulltime use of CI. Conclusions: Even a mild hearing loss in early childhood may affect and delay the onset of important linguistic milestones like canonical babbling and consonant production. It was indicated that children with CI or HA might receive different attention and intervention services. Longer hearing age and full-time use of hearing technology may influence positively on CB ratio and consonant production in children with HI.

The objective of the current study was to investigate possible differences in word count use per day (number of adult words) by caregivers of different gender, in a sample of Norwegian children (N = 17) with hearing impairment (HI) (n = 8) and normal hearing (NH) (n = 9), aged 18-56 months. The current study had a cross-sectional, descriptive study design. One all-day recording with the LENA technology was conducted to measure adult word use in the home environment (Md length: 12.46 h, 9.13-16 h). Female caregivers used a significantly higher amount of words than male caregivers close to the children, regardless of their hearing status, HI: p = .01, NH: p = .01. All children were exposed to a higher number of adult words from female caregivers. There is a need to conduct more and further research about possible caregiver differences, and investigate not only the quantity of word use, but also the qualitative interaction patterns between caregivers of different gender and young children with HI, and in relation to early intervention actions., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest None., (Copyright © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Aim: Although cytomegalovirus (CMV) is the most common congenital infection, existing research has not provided us with a full picture of how this can affect children in the future. The aim of this case-control study was to evaluate disabilities in a well-defined group of children with congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection, who had been fitted with cochlear implants because of severe hearing impairment., Methods: A multidisciplinary team assessed 26 children with congenital CMV infection for balance difficulties, neurodevelopmental disabilities and language and visual impairment. We also included a control group of 13 children with severe hearing impairment due to connexin 26 mutations., Results: The majority of the children with congenital CMV infection (88%) displayed balance disturbances, including walking at a later age, but there were no cases in the control group. The CMV group also displayed frequent neurodevelopmental disabilities and feeding difficulties., Conclusion: Congenital CMV infection affects the general development of the brain and gives rise to a complex pattern of difficulties. Identifying comorbid conditions is very important, as children with associated difficulties and disabilities need more support than children with just hearing impairment. Congenital CMV infection needs to be considered in children with hearing impairment and/or balance disturbance and/or neurodevelopmental disabilities., (©2014 Foundation Acta Paediatrica. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Word fluency was examined in 73 Swedish children aged 6-9 years divided into two age groups, 6-7 and 8-9 years; 34 deaf children with cochlear implants (CI) (15 girls/19 boys) and 39 age-matched children with normal hearing (NH) (20 girls/19 boys). One purpose was to compare the ability to retrieve words in two different word fluency tasks; one phonemically based (FAS letter fluency) and one semantically based (animal fluency). A second purpose was to examine retrieval strategies in the two tasks by conducting an analysis of clustering and switching of word sequences. In general we found that age was an important factor for word fluency ability, in both the CI and the NH groups. It was also demonstrated that children with CI aged 8-9 years retrieved significantly fewer words and used less efficient strategies in the retrieval process, especially on the phonemically based task compared to children with NH of the same ages, whereas children 6-7 years performed similarly in both groups regarding number of retrieved words and use of strategies. The results are discussed with respect to factors such as age differences in performance for children with CI, especially for the phonemically based task., (© 2012 The Authors. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology © 2012 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations.)

Children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) are at an increased risk of speech and language deficits. Nonword repetition (NWR) is a potential predictor of problems with phonology, grammar and lexicon in DHH children. The aim of the present study was to examine repetition of prosodic features and segments in nonwords by DHH children compared to children with normal hearing (NH) and to relate NWR performance to measures of language ability and background variables. In this cross-sectional study, 14 Swedish-speaking children with mild-profound sensorineural hearing loss, aged 4-6 years, and 29 age-matched controls with NH and typical language development participated. The DHH children used cochlear implants (CI), hearing aids or a combination of both. The assessment materials included a prosodically controlled NWR task, as well as tests of phonological production, expressive grammar and receptive vocabulary. The DHH children performed below the children with NH on the repetition of tonal word accents, stress patterns, vowels and consonants, with consonants being hardest, and tonal word accents easiest, to repeat. NWR performance was also correlated with language ability, and to hearing level, in the DHH children. Both prosodic and segmental features of nonwords are problematic for Swedish-speaking DHH children compared to children with NH, but performance on tonal word accent repetition is comparably high. NWR may have potential as a clinically useful tool for identification of children who are in need of speech and language intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]