The Spoken Syntax of Normal, Hard-of-Hearing, and Deaf Children

Abstract

A spoken language sample of 50 sentences was obtained from 30 normal and 30 hearing-impaired children and quantified according to total output and syntactical accuracy. A total score of structural accuracy (syntax) was obtained by combining the errors of addition, omission, substitution, and word order. The hard-of-hearing subgroup resembled the control group in its total output of words, but the deaf subgroup was significantly lower in this measure. The differences between syntax scores were significant among all three groups. A moderate correlation was found between average hearing loss and total words uttered; a higher correlation resulted when hearing loss and measures of syntax were paired.