A University of Miami study offers new insights into language development in children with hearing loss, suggesting language learning strategies that may help children with cochlear implants—surgically implanted hearing devices—overcome initial language development delays. The study, conducted by University of Miami College of Arts and Sciences researchers Lynn K. Perry and Daniel S.
Messinger, and University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine researcher Ivette Cejas, sheds light on the relationship between early vocabulary knowledge and later language development in children with cochlear implants. The researchers focused on the proportion of shape-based nouns in children's initial vocabularies.
Shape-based nouns are words like "chair" or "cup" that describe a category of objects based on their shape, rather than other characteristics such as color or material. Their findings, published in Developmental Science , show that a higher proportion of shape-based nouns in a child's vocabulary shortly after cochlear implantation was associated with better language development for the next three years. The researchers also found that the association between the shape-based nouns and long-term language development was stronger in children who had received cochlear implants, compared to children with normal hearing.
The results have implications for efforts to help children with hearing loss surmount initial language delays caused by a lack of auditory input and access .