Receptive vocabulary skills of 5-7 years old Bangla speaking children with or without hearing impairment

Abstract

Executive summary Introduction Executive summary Vocabulary is an essential part and building blocks of language. It facilitates of receptive language acquisition and generally it helps to elicit expressive language of a child (Himmel, 2008). Many factors influence on child’s vocabulary development. Hearing is one of them and it is one of the core skills of language acquisition (The Importance of Listening, n.d). Children with hearing impairment have difficulties at all the layers of vocabulary knowledge (Effects of Hearing Loss on Development, 2014). Children with hearing impairment acquisition of receptive vocabulary are at risk of delayed receptive and expressive communication skills such as speech and language (Himmel, 2008). In this study investigator intended to find out the receptive vocabulary skills between typically developing children and children with hearing impairment (5-7 years). Objective The main objective of the study was to compare the receptive vocabulary development between typically developing children and children with hearing impairment (5-7 years). Methodology The design of the study was cross sectional study design. Data was collected from preschool of ‘Rosi Flower Integrated Pre-School for Hearing Impaired Children’ of SAHIC for children with hearing impairment and William Marie Taylor School for typically developing children in Dhaka city. The participants were 30, 15 were typically developing children and 15 were children with hearing impairment and age range was 5 to 7 years. In this study, purposive sampling method was used to select the sample. Investigator used The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-III) to collect the data. Investigator did a pilot study on Bangladeshi children from 2 age groups for ensuring data collection tool according to Bangladeshi perspective. Data was analyzed by descriptive statistical techniques. Results From this study found that 5-6 years and 6-7 years of typically developing children average receptive vocabulary mean score was 66.71 and 87.12. On the other hand 5-6 years and 6-7 years children with hearing impairment mean score was 13 and 29. For both age groups of typically developing children achieved higher mean score than children with hearing impairment. In case of noun, verb and adjective score children with hearing impairment were achieved lower score than their typically developing children. So this study showed that hearing impairment had significant impact on children’s vocabulary development. Conclusion From different research it was quite clears that hearing impairment has significant impact on child’s vocabulary development. In this study, it was also observed that children with hearing impairment had delayed in vocabulary development including noun, verb and adjective than the vocabulary development of typically developing children. Although there were many limitations to conduct the research, but hopefully it would be resource for SLT department in Bangladeshi context.