The Consequences of Deafness for Spoken Language Development

Abstract

Untreated prelinguistic deafness has a major effect on the development of spoken language, slowing development to less than half the normal rate on average, and often resulting in permanent spoken language deficits. When treated with cochlear implants at a reasonably early age, profoundly deaf children can learn spoken language, following patterns and stages of development that are similar to the patterns and stages for children with normal hearing and children with moderate and severe hearing loss who wear hearing aids. For example, receptive language and expressive language progress at similar rates, and vocabulary expands in step with other aspects of language such as phonology, morpholog..