The Relationship between the Development of Auditory and Speech in Children with Hearing Loss after Hearing Aid Fitting / 听力学及言语疾病杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To study the relationship between the development of auditory and speech in children with hearing loss after hearing aid fitting and discuss the development of speech with the ability of auditory in children at different stages of evaluation, with different degrees of hearing loss and different ages respectively.Methods A total of 19 children (14 boys and 5 girls) with hearing loss participated in this study.The age at hearing aid fitting ranged from 3 to 8 years old with a mean of 5.42±1.86 years old.According to their hearing levels, the children in this study were divided into two groups the moderate hearing loss group (n=10) and the severe group (n=9).According to their ages at hearing aid fitting, all children in this study were divided into two groups the less than or equal to six years old (n=11) and greater than six years old (n=8).MAIS and MUSS were used to evaluate their abilities of auditory and speech at pre-fitting, 1, 3, 6, 9 and 12 months after hearing aids were worn respectively.A linear and regression analysis was done in the statistic procedure.Results There was a significant correlation between the scores of MAIS and MUSS (R=0.774,P<0.05).There was also a significant correlation between the scores of MAIS and MUSS for the different evaluating stages respectively.The correlations were pre-fitting (R=0.710,P<0.05), 1 month after hearing aid fitting (R=0.774,P<0.05), 3 months after hearing aid fitting (R=0.814,P<0.05), 6 months after hearing aid fitting (R=0.819,P<0.05), 9 months after hearing aid fitting (R=0.707,P<0.05), 12 months after hearing aid fitting (R=0.649,P<0.05).There was also a significant correlation between the scores of MAIS and MUSS for MAIS (items 3~6) (Sound awareness) and MAIS (items 7~10) (Sound understanding).The correlations for MAIS (items 3~6) were (R=0.768,P<0.05), and for MAIS (items 7~10) (Sound understanding) (R=0.794,P<0.05).There was also a significant correlation between the scores of MAIS and MUSS for different group of ages.The correlations for the group of <6years old were (R=0.808,P<0.05), and for the group of the ≥6 years old (R=0.775,P<0.05).There was also a significant correlation between the scores of MAIS and MUSS for different groups of hearing loss levels.The correlation for the group of moderate hearing loss was (R=0.771,P<0.05), and the group of severe hearing loss (R=0.787,P<0.05).Conclusion The development of auditory ability is closely related to the speech ability.The speech abilities increase with the improvement of auditory abilities.The less severe the hearing loss is, the longer the use of hearing aids, the younger the children are, the better the speech ability improved with auditory ability development after hearing aid fitting.