The influence of oral language environment on auditory development

Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare the auditory processing of hearing children who were immersed in an oral language environment during early childhood with that of children who were poorly exposed to oral language during the same period. Methods: Sixty children aged between 5 and 10 years participated in this study. They were divided in two groups. Group 1 comprised of 30 children who had deaf signer parents, and Group 2 comprised of 30 children who had hearing parents. These children underwent the following auditory processing tests: Pediatric Speech Intelligibility, Dichotic Digits, Pitch Pattern Sequence, Gaps-in-Noise, and Memory Tests for Instrumental and Verbal sounds. Results: Group 1 had significantly poorer performance than that of Group 2 in all tests. In addition, an analysis by age range revealed that the differences between groups were more pronounced in younger children (5-6 years). Conclusion: The results indicate that the development of auditory skills is strongly influenced by access to oral linguistic sounds. Thus, a child's exposure to an oral language environment from birth is important to the adequate development of the auditory system functions.