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JCPSLP
Volume 16, Number 1 2014
Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology
their past (Crowe, McLeod, McKinnon, & Ching, 2012). The
frequency with which sign was used by young children with
hearing loss, mostly concurrent with spoken language,
indicates the need for resources to support children and
parents in developing sign skills. In addition, there is a need
for clinicians and educators working these families to have
knowledge of sign and of developing sign skills with
children and their families.
The languages most frequently used by the children
were English, followed by Arabic, Cantonese, Vietnamese,
and Spanish; however, in total the children used 29
different spoken languages to communicate (see Table 2;
Crowe, McLeod, & Ching, 2012). A small percentage of
children used more than one spoken language at home,
and even fewer used more than one spoken language
in early intervention (see Table 1; Crowe, McLeod, &
Ching, 2012). Some parents reported that they had tried
to raise their children with hearing loss to be multilingual,
but that their children used only one spoken language
(Crowe, McLeod, & Ching, 2012). The rates at which these
languages were used were similar to those reported to
be used by young Australian children without hearing loss
in the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (McLeod,
2011; Verdon, McLeod, & Winsler, in press). Approximately
17% of children used a spoken language other than
English at home, but this language was rarely used in early
intervention (see Table 1; Crowe, McLeod, & Ching, 2012).
At 3-years of age, the following characteristics were
important in differentiating children who used speech
at home from those who used both sign and speech at
home: the communication mode their mother used at
home, whether children had any disabilities in addition to
hearing loss, and their mothers’ level of education (Crowe,
McKinnon et al., 2013). The communication mode used in
early intervention for these children was best differentiated
by: children’s communication mode at home, and whether
their father used a language other than English at home
(Crowe, McKinnon et al., 2013). For 3-year-old children the
following characteristics were important in differentiating
children from multilingual homes who used English at home
and who used another language at home (with or without
also using English): mothers’ use of English at home,
children’s communication mode at home, and whether
children used English at home (Crowe, McKinnon et al.,
2013). While further investigation of these relationships is
warranted, these relationships do indicate that how parents
choose to communicate with their children is a complex
issue that may draw on many aspects of the families’
experiences and characteristics.
The communication of the parents of
young children with hearing loss
The majority of parents of children participating in this study
used spoken English to communicate at home when their
children were 3-years-old (Table 3), while very few of the
parents used sign to communicate (Crowe, McLeod, &
Ching, 2012). The languages most frequently used were
English, Arabic, Cantonese, Vietnamese, and Italian;
however, parents used 45 different spoken languages at
home (see Table 2; Crowe, McLeod, & Ching, 2012). The
rates at which these different languages were used were
similar to the languages reported in the Australian census
(Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2012). Approximately 20%
of parents used more than one spoken language at home,
compared to only 13% of children (Tables 1 and 2; Crowe,
McLeod, & Ching, 2012; Crowe, McLeod, McKinnon, et al.,
Hearing Impairment (LOCHI) study
.
au). The LOCHI study is an ongoing large-scale population
study of over 400 children in New South Wales,
Queensland, and Victoria, who were fitted with a hearing
aid or cochlear implant before they were 3-years-old.
Information collected as part of the LOCHI study is very
broad; however, the current paper draws on information
collected from three sources:
1. Parents and teachers/clinicians completed
questionnaires when the participating children
were 3-years-old. This provided information about
how children communicated at home and in early
intervention, and what languages their parents used
at home. This questionnaire also collected information
about other important child and parent characteristics,
such as country of birth, socioeconomic status, parental
education level, parental hearing status, and children’s
disabilities in addition to hearing loss. Information was
obtained that described 406 children and 792 of their
parents.
2. Information from the children’s audiologists described
how old the children were when they were diagnosed
with a hearing loss, when they were first fitted with
hearing aids, and the severity of their hearing loss. For
children with cochlear implants, the age when their first
implant was switched on was also obtained.
3. Questionnaires investigating parent decision-making about
communication mode and language use for their children
with hearing loss were obtained from 177 parents.
The communication of young Australian
children with hearing loss
The majority of the 406 children participating in the LOCHI
study used spoken English to communicate when they
were 3-years-old (Table 1), with very few children using only
sign to communicate, and approximately 25% of the
children using speech and some form of sign (or symbols)
to communicate (Crowe, McLeod, & Ching, 2012). The
most common types of signed communication used were
Australian Sign Language (Auslan), followed by Makaton
and Signed English, and then alternative communication
(e.g., pictures and symbols; Crowe, McLeod, & Ching,
2012). For children aged between 3 and 9 years, 33%
either currently used sign, or had used sign at some time in
Table 1. Children’s communication style at 3 years
of age (based on data from Crowe, McLeod, &
Ching, 2012)
Communication style At home At intervention
Communication Speech only
75% 77%
mode
Sign only
1% <1%
Sign and speech
24% 23%
Spoken
Spoken English
94% 99%
language use Other spoken language 17% 3%
Spoken English only
82% 97%
Other spoken language
only
4% 1%
Spoken
Monolingual
86% 97%
language
Multilingual
13% 2%
multilingualism
Note. Based on data from 406 children participating in the
Longitudinal Outcomes of Children with Hearing Impairment (LOCHI)
study. Percentages do not all add to 100% as some children did
not use any spoken language, some children used more than one
language, and there were small amounts of missing data.
