Purpose The purpose of this pilot study was to explore the home language environment and language... more 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 A...
The aim of the study was to examine grammatical sentence understanding (TROG-2) in 6-9 year old c... more The aim of the study was to examine grammatical sentence understanding (TROG-2) in 6-9 year old children with cochlear implants (CI), and compare their performance to age-matched children with normal hearing (NH). Receptive vocabulary, picture naming, semantic feature knowledge, word fluency, non-word discrimination (phonology), word learning and non-verbal cognitive ability were examined as possible predicting factors for TROG-2. Age at implantation, hearing age, and speech recognition were also investigated in children with CI. For TROG-2, 6-7 year old children with CI performed similar to controls, and 50 % of them reached one year or more above the age-equivalent norm level. Speech recognition and age at 2nd implantation were associated with better results on TROG-2. Non-verbal cognitive ability and picture naming predicted grammatical sentence understanding in children with CI. Earlier age at implantation and a shorter period between 1st and 2nd implantation might also have a p...
The present study examined reading fluency and orthographic learning in 40 childrenwith cochlear ... more The present study examined reading fluency and orthographic learning in 40 childrenwith cochlear implants. Their age range was 6;0-10;11.The children were implantedwith their (first) CI at 24 month ...
Studies have limitedly considered children with early-identified unilateral hearing impairment (U... more Studies have limitedly considered children with early-identified unilateral hearing impairment (UHI), and clinical practices regarding screening, diagnostics and habilitation in this group are rarely documented. In this study, routines for newborns with UHI from screening to diagnostics and habilitation were explored in Norway, Sweden and Finland. An online survey was sent to hospitals responsible for the hearing diagnostics of children requesting information about their practices regarding congenital UHI. Responses covered 95% of the children born in the three included countries. The results revealed large variations in ways of organising healthcare and in clinical decisions regarding hearing screening, diagnostics and habilitation of children with congenital UHI. Finally, implications for policy making and research are also discussed.
Purpose: Kenett et al. (2013) report that the sematic networks of children with CI are less struc... more Purpose: Kenett et al. (2013) report that the sematic networks of children with CI are less structured compared to the sematic networks of children with TH. This study aims to evaluate if such differences are only evident if children with CI are compared to children with TH matched on chronological age, or also if they are compared to children with TH matched on hearing age. Method: The performance of a group of children with CI on a verbal fluency task was compared to the performance of a group of chronological-age matched children with TH. Subsequently, computational network analysis was used to compare the semantic network structure of the groups. The same procedure was applied to compare a group of children with CI to a group of hearing-age matched children with TH. Results: Children with CI perform on the same level on a sematic fluency task as children with TH matched on hearing age. There are significant differences in terms of the structure of the semantic network between th...
Lexical and semantic ability in children with cochlear implants in comparison to children with la... more Lexical and semantic ability in children with cochlear implants in comparison to children with language impairment or autism spectrum disorder
ABSTRACT This study examined verbal retrieval in participants with acquired moderate-to-severe se... more ABSTRACT This study examined verbal retrieval in participants with acquired moderate-to-severe sensorineural hearing impairment (M age = 63, M education level = 13 years) compared to participants with normal hearing thresholds (M age = 62, M education level = 14 years) using the letter and category fluency tasks. Analyses of number of words produced, clustering, and switching, were conducted. There was no significant difference between the groups in category fluency performance. In letter fluency, however, the participants with hearing impairment produced significantly fewer words than the normal hearing participants and their production was characterized by fewer switches. Regression analyses were conducted to examine the relationship between demographic, auditory, and cognitive variables and letter fluency performance in the two groups. Phonological skills and auditory acuity predicted letter fluency output only in participants with hearing impairment and a hearing-related link between phonological skills, working memory capacity, and letter fluency switching was found.
International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology
The objective of the current study was to investigate possible differences in word count use per ... more 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.
Purpose The purpose of this pilot study was to explore the home language environment and language... more 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 A...
The aim of the study was to examine grammatical sentence understanding (TROG-2) in 6-9 year old c... more The aim of the study was to examine grammatical sentence understanding (TROG-2) in 6-9 year old children with cochlear implants (CI), and compare their performance to age-matched children with normal hearing (NH). Receptive vocabulary, picture naming, semantic feature knowledge, word fluency, non-word discrimination (phonology), word learning and non-verbal cognitive ability were examined as possible predicting factors for TROG-2. Age at implantation, hearing age, and speech recognition were also investigated in children with CI. For TROG-2, 6-7 year old children with CI performed similar to controls, and 50 % of them reached one year or more above the age-equivalent norm level. Speech recognition and age at 2nd implantation were associated with better results on TROG-2. Non-verbal cognitive ability and picture naming predicted grammatical sentence understanding in children with CI. Earlier age at implantation and a shorter period between 1st and 2nd implantation might also have a p...
The present study examined reading fluency and orthographic learning in 40 childrenwith cochlear ... more The present study examined reading fluency and orthographic learning in 40 childrenwith cochlear implants. Their age range was 6;0-10;11.The children were implantedwith their (first) CI at 24 month ...
Studies have limitedly considered children with early-identified unilateral hearing impairment (U... more Studies have limitedly considered children with early-identified unilateral hearing impairment (UHI), and clinical practices regarding screening, diagnostics and habilitation in this group are rarely documented. In this study, routines for newborns with UHI from screening to diagnostics and habilitation were explored in Norway, Sweden and Finland. An online survey was sent to hospitals responsible for the hearing diagnostics of children requesting information about their practices regarding congenital UHI. Responses covered 95% of the children born in the three included countries. The results revealed large variations in ways of organising healthcare and in clinical decisions regarding hearing screening, diagnostics and habilitation of children with congenital UHI. Finally, implications for policy making and research are also discussed.
Purpose: Kenett et al. (2013) report that the sematic networks of children with CI are less struc... more Purpose: Kenett et al. (2013) report that the sematic networks of children with CI are less structured compared to the sematic networks of children with TH. This study aims to evaluate if such differences are only evident if children with CI are compared to children with TH matched on chronological age, or also if they are compared to children with TH matched on hearing age. Method: The performance of a group of children with CI on a verbal fluency task was compared to the performance of a group of chronological-age matched children with TH. Subsequently, computational network analysis was used to compare the semantic network structure of the groups. The same procedure was applied to compare a group of children with CI to a group of hearing-age matched children with TH. Results: Children with CI perform on the same level on a sematic fluency task as children with TH matched on hearing age. There are significant differences in terms of the structure of the semantic network between th...
Lexical and semantic ability in children with cochlear implants in comparison to children with la... more Lexical and semantic ability in children with cochlear implants in comparison to children with language impairment or autism spectrum disorder
ABSTRACT This study examined verbal retrieval in participants with acquired moderate-to-severe se... more ABSTRACT This study examined verbal retrieval in participants with acquired moderate-to-severe sensorineural hearing impairment (M age = 63, M education level = 13 years) compared to participants with normal hearing thresholds (M age = 62, M education level = 14 years) using the letter and category fluency tasks. Analyses of number of words produced, clustering, and switching, were conducted. There was no significant difference between the groups in category fluency performance. In letter fluency, however, the participants with hearing impairment produced significantly fewer words than the normal hearing participants and their production was characterized by fewer switches. Regression analyses were conducted to examine the relationship between demographic, auditory, and cognitive variables and letter fluency performance in the two groups. Phonological skills and auditory acuity predicted letter fluency output only in participants with hearing impairment and a hearing-related link between phonological skills, working memory capacity, and letter fluency switching was found.
International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology
The objective of the current study was to investigate possible differences in word count use per ... more 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.
Uploads
Papers by ulrika lofkvist