Effect of Early Intervention on Language Development in Hearing-Impaired Children

Introduction: Hearing loss from birth up to the age of 3 years has a negative effect on speech/language development and results in sensory, cognitive, emotional, and academic defects in adulthood by causing delayed development of communicative-linguistic abilities. The present study was performed in order to assess the effect of early intervention on language development in Persian children aged 6-7 years with severe sensorineural hearing loss. Materials and Methods: Thirty boys and girls aged 6-7 years participated in this study, all of them had severe congenital sensorineural hearing loss in both ears. All children were using bilateral behind-the-ear hearing aid, and had similar economic/socio-cultural backgrounds. Subjects were categorized into two groups based on the age of identification/intervention of hearing loss (3-6 and 12-15 months of age). The Persian TOLD-P3 test was used to evaluate language development in all subjects. Data collection was accomplished by observation, completion of questionnaires, and speech recording. Results: There was a significant difference in language development in 11 sub-tests and five lingual gains on the Persian TOLD-P3 test between early (3-6 months of age) and late identified/intervened (12-15 months of age) hearing-impaired children (P