Structures Underpinning Pretend Play and Word Production in Young Hearing Children and Children With Hearing Loss

• Published in: Journal of deaf studies and deaf education Vol. 6; no. 1; pp. 15 - 31
• Main Authors: Brown, P. Margaret, Rickards, Field W., Bortoli, Anna
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cary, NC Oxford University Press 01-01-2001; Oxford Publishing Limited (England)
• Subjects: Auditory perception; Biological and medical sciences; Child development; Children; Deaf education; Deafness; Early Childhood Education; Early Intervention; Educational Development; Empirical Articles; Executive Function; Expressive Language; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Handicap; Hearing Impairments; Hearing loss; Language Acquisition; Language development; Longitudinal Studies; Play languages; Pretend Play; Psychology and medicine; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Sequencing; Toddlers; Young Children; Human; Preschool age; Peer relation; Auditory disorder; Infant; Verbal production; Hearing loss; Play; Language; Social interaction; Language development; ENT disease; Sensory handicap; Child
• ISSN: 1081-4159; 1465-7325; 1465-7325
• DOI: 10.1093/deafed/6.1.15

Relationships between pretend play and word production were investigated in 10 hearing (H) and 10 toddlers with hearing loss (D) who attended an auditory/oral early intervention program. All children were videotaped interacting in free play with their hearing primary caregiver at 28, 29, and 30 months of age. Group comparisons were made for the scores for highest and mean levels of pretend play and for the underlying structures of decontextualization, decentration, sequencing, and planning. Relationships with word production were then explored for the two groups separately. Results showed significantly higher levels of pretend play for all dimensions for the hearing children and an association between level of pretend play and word production for the children with hearing loss. Associations between word production and sequencing and planning were found for both groups of children. Word production was associated with decontextualization for the hearing children and with decentration for the children with hearing loss. We discuss theoretical implications of the findings together with implications for intervention with toddlers who have hearing loss.