Language development and mild-to-moderate hearing loss: does language normalize with age?

The authors’ purpose was to explore the nature of the link between hearing
loss ( HL) and language impairment in adolescents with mild-to-moderate hearing
loss (MMHL). Does language performance (generally or in certain areas) normalize
at adolescence?
Method: The language skills of 19 French-speaking adolescents (ages 11–15) with
moderate or mild sensorineural HL were evaluated via a series of tests assessing oral
and written language, including an experimental probe, and compared with typically
developing adolescents and adolescents with specific language impairment (SLI).
Results: Language disorders were found, notably in the areas of phonology and
grammar, in more than half the adolescents with MMHL; affected domains and error
patterns were identical to those found in adolescents with SLI. Language scores of
the adolescents with MMHL were significantly linked with degree of HL, a correlation
not generally found in studies of children with MMHL.
Conclusion: Normalization of language performance does not generalize at
adolescence in the context of MMHL. The fact that an effect of the severity of HL
was found only after childhood might be because linguistic development is basically
complete at adolescence. Prior to this time, this effect could be obscured by
developmental rhythms that vary from child to child.