Early predictors of phonological and morphosyntactic skills in second graders with cochlear implants.
Mean length of utterance in preschool predicts which CI kids will struggle most with reading and grammar by second grade.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Nittrouer et al. (2016) followed second graders who had cochlear implants. They wanted to know which preschool numbers best flag later reading and grammar trouble.
The team looked at old speech files from when the kids were three to five. They compared early scores with later phonology and morphosyntax tests.
What they found
Mean length of utterance, or MLU, was the clearest crystal ball. Kids with short early sentences had the biggest phonology gaps in second grade.
Morphosyntax delays were smaller but still real. The take-home: track MLU early; it tells you who needs the most help later.
How this fits with other research
Libero et al. (2016) also studied CI kids and found auditory memory and phoneme skill matter. Susan’s team adds MLU to the watch-list, so now you monitor both listening and talking.
Meinzen-Derr et al. (2011) showed CI plus developmental disability drops language scores even further. Susan’s work extends that warning by giving you a preschool metric to catch the slide earlier.
Soltaninejad et al. (2021) proved grammar drills raise MLU and vocabulary after implant. Their success builds on Susan’s finding by showing you can move the very predictor she flagged.
Why it matters
If you serve deaf or hard-of-hearing learners, start logging MLU at three and four. A flat line or slow growth means pile on language-rich play, auditory training, and later structured grammar work. Susan gives you the red flag; Soltaninejad gives you the fix.
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Pull last month’s language samples, calculate MLU, and flag any child under two morphemes below age norm for extra language drills this week.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
PURPOSE: Newborn hearing screening has made it possible to provide early treatment of hearing loss to more children than ever before, raising expectations these children will be able to attend regular schools. But continuing deficits in spoken language skills have led to challenges in meeting those expectations. This study was conducted to (1) examine two kinds of language skills (phonological and morphosyntactic) at school age (second grade) for children with cochlear implants (CIs); (2) see which measures from earlier in life best predicted performance at second grade; (3) explore how well these skills supported other cognitive and language functions; and (4) examine how treatment factors affected measured outcomes. METHODS: Data were analyzed from 100 second-grade, monolingual English-speaking children: 51 with CIs and 49 with normal hearing (NH). Ten measures of spoken language and related functions were collected: three each of phonological and morphosyntactic skills; and four of other cognitive and language functions. Six measures from preschool and seven from kindergarten served as predictor variables. The effects of treatment variables were examined. RESULTS: Children with CIs were more delayed acquiring phonological than morphosyntactic skills. Mean length of utterance at earlier ages was the most consistent predictor of both phonological and morphosyntactic skills at second grade. Early bimodal stimulation had a weak, but positive effect on phonological skills at second grade; sign language experience during preschool had a negative effect on morphosyntactic structures in spoken language. CONCLUSIONS: Children with CIs are delayed in language acquisition, and especially so in phonological skills. Appropriate testing and treatments can help ameliorate these delays.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2016 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2016.03.020