Children With Developmental Language Disorder Have Lower Quality of Life Than Children With Typical Development and Children With Cochlear Implants.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine quality of life (QOL) and its relation to language skills in children with developmental language disorder (DLD). This was examined by comparing QOL to a control group of children with typical development (TD), as well as children with cochlear implants (CIs), who potentially struggle with language for language, although for a different reason than children with DLD. METHOD: Two groups of children, a group with TD (n = 29) and a group of children with CIs (n = 29), were matched to the DLD group (n = 29) on chronological age, gender, nonverbal IQ, and parental educational level through a propensity matching procedure. A third group consisting of children with CIs was also matched to the DLD group but additionally matched on language abilities. QOL scores were compared across groups, and the association between language skills and QOL was examined in the DLD group. RESULT: The DLD group was reported by parents to have statistically significantly poorer QOL scores than peers with TD or CIs. When controlling for language skills, either statistically or through an additional CI group matched on language abilities, there were no statistically significant differences in QOL scores across groups. In the DLD group, language skills explained 16% of the variation in QOL. CONCLUSION: DLD is associated with the children's overall QOL, and the degree of reduced QOL relates to the severity of the language impairment.

Validation of the Norwegian version of the Parents' Evaluation of Aural/ Oral Performance of Children (PEACH+) for children with typical hearing aged 12-72 months.

BACKGROUND: The Parents' Evaluation of Aural/Oral Performance of Children (PEACH+) is a parent reported questionnaire. It was first developed in Australia (2007) to assess the effectiveness of hearing devices in young children, and to register how oral children under the age of five hear and communicate with others. OBJECTIVE: No validated version of the Norwegian translation of PEACH+ exists. This study therefore aims to evaluate the validity and reliability of a back-translated Norwegian version of the PEACH+, from a sample of Norwegian children with typical hearing. METHODS: Parents of 255 children with typical hearing between 12 and 72 months were recruited through kindergartens and social media platforms. Participants were asked to fill in the PEACH+ questionnaire on behalf of their child, in a digital format. RESULTS: High internal consistency (Cronbach's Alpha = .917) and satisfactory item-total correlation were found (.342-.678). CONCLUSION: The Norwegian translation of PEACH+ shows good psychometric properties that are similar to the original version (Ching and Hill, 2007) and that of other translations. The PEACH+ questionnaire is therefore valid to use in a Norwegian context.

Social communication and quality of life in children using hearing aids.

OBJECTIVES: This study compared the parent-reported structural language and social communication skills-measured with the Children's Communication Checklist-2 (CCC-2)-and health-related quality of life (HR-QOL)-measured with the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL)-of children who use hearing aids (HAs) and their typical-hearing (TH) peers. DESIGN: The participants were 88 children (age range of 5; 6 to 13; 1 (years; months)) and their parents: 45 children with bilateral moderate to severe hearing loss using HAs who had no additional disabilities and 43 children with typical hearing. The groups were matched based on chronological age, gender, nonverbal IQ, and parental education level. The parents completed questionnaires related to their children's communication skills, including subdomains structural language and social communication, and HR-QOL. RESULTS: The HA group had significantly poorer overall communication skills than the TH group (r = 0.49). The children in the HA group scored significantly lower than the TH group on both structural language (r = 0.37) and social communication (r = 0.41). Half of the children in the HA group had overall communication scores that either indicated concern or required further investigation according to the instrument's manual. In terms of psychosocial functioning, which was measured as HR-QOL, the subdomain school functioning was the main driver of the difference between groups, with the HA group being at least twice as likely (OR = 2.52) as the TH group to have poor HR-QOL in the school domain. Better parent-reported social communication was associated with better parent-reported psychosocial functioning in the children using HAs-even when background variables were taken into account. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that traditional assessments and interventions targeting structural aspects of language may overlook social communication difficulties in children with HAs, even those with no additional disabilities. As school functioning stood out as the most problematic domain for children with HAs, efforts to improve the well-being of these children should focus on this area.

Health-Related Quality of Life With Cochlear Implants: The Children's Perspective.

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to assess self-reported health-related quality of life (HR-QOL) in a group of children with cochlear implants (CIs) and to compare their scores to age- and gender-matched controls. The authors also assessed the agreement between proxy- and self-reported HR-QOL in the CI group and examined individual and environmental variables that could be associated with higher or lower self-reported HR-QOL in the CI group. DESIGN: The sample consisted of 168 children between the ages of 5;6 and 13;1 (years;months), where 84 children had CIs (CI group) and 84 were age- and gender-matched controls with normal hearing (NH group). HR-QOL was assessed with the generic questionnaire Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory. Parents of the children in the CI group completed the same questionnaire as the children. In addition, the children in the CI group completed tests of language, hearing, and nonverbal I.Q. and background variables such as age at implantation and socioeconomic status were assessed. RESULTS: On average, children with CIs rated their HR-QOL lower than peers with normal hearing on school functioning, social functioning, and overall HR-QOL. A higher percentage of children with CIs reported low levels of HR-QOL than did those in the NH group, 27% and 12%, respectively. The differences between groups were small, and fewer children than parents reported concerningly low HR-QOLs. Better spoken-language skills and older age at the time of testing was associated with better HR-QOL. CONCLUSIONS: Most children with CIs in this study reported HR-QOLs that were close to those of their age- and gender-matched normal-hearing peers. The children, however, reported concerns about social and school functioning, indicating that these areas require more attention to ensure children with CIs have good HR-QOL. Improving spoken-language skills in children with CIs may contribute to improved HR-QOL.

Parents' Perception of Health-Related Quality of Life in Children With Cochlear Implants: The Impact of Language Skills and Hearing.

Purpose: The study compared how parents of children with cochlear implants (CIs) and parents of children with normal hearing perceive their children's health-related quality of life (HR-QOL). Method: The sample consisted of 186 Norwegian-speaking children in the age span of 5;0-12;11 (years;months): 106 children with CIs (53% boys, 47% girls) and 80 children with normal hearing (44% boys, 56% girls). No children had known additional disabilities affecting language, cognitive development, or HR-QOL. Parents completed the generic questionnaire Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (Varni, Seid, & Kurtin, 2001), whereas children completed a test battery measuring different aspects of language and hearing. Results: Parents of children with CIs reported statistically significantly poorer HR-QOL in their children, on Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory total score and the subdomains social functioning and school functioning. Roughly 50% of parents of children with CIs reported HR-QOL levels (total score) within normal limits. No significant differences between groups emerged on the physical health and emotional functioning subscales. For the children in the group with CIs, better speech perception in everyday situations was associated with higher proxy-ratings of HR-QOL. Better spoken language skills were weakly to moderately associated with higher HR-QOL. Conclusions: The findings suggest that the social and school situation is not yet resolved satisfactorily for children with CIs. Habilitation focusing on spoken language skills and better sound environment may improve social interactions with peers and overall school functioning.

Does a lack of auditory experience affect sequential learning?

To understand the interaction between sensory experiences and cognition, it is critical to investigate the possibility that deprivation in one sensory modality might affect cognition in other modalities. Here we are concerned with the hypothesis that early experience with sound is vital to the development of domain-general sequential processing skills. In line with this hypothesis, a seminal empirical study found that prelingually deaf children had impaired sequence learning in the visual modality. In order to assess the limits of this hypothesis, the current study employed a different visual sequence learning task in an investigation of prelingually deaf children with cochlear implants and normal hearing children. Results showed statistically significant learning in each of the two groups, and no significant difference in the amount of learning between groups. Moreover, there was no association between the age at which the child received their implant (and thus access to electric hearing) and their performance on the sequential learning task. We discuss key differences between our study and the previous study, and argue that the field must reconsider claims about domain-general cognitive impairment resulting from early auditory deprivation.