Hearing type influences preschoolers’ phoneme-level phonological awareness

Children who are deaf/hard of hearing (D/HH) have lower performance on test of phonological awareness, particularly phoneme-level tasks, than children with normal hearing. These performance deficits have been seen both in children who use cochlear implants (CIs) and children who use hearing aids (HAs), but few studies have explicitly compared the effect of hearing type on phonological awareness. Forty-one preschoolers who were D/HH and 36 preschoolers with normal hearing participated. Participating children were between 3- and 4-years-old. Of the D/HH children, 14 CI were users and 27 were HA users. All children completed the phonological awareness test of the Test of Preschool Early Literacy, which assesses sound blending and elision, and the sound blending test of the Tests of Early Cognitive and Academic Development. Data are raw scores. There was a clear effect of hearing type. Children who used CIs had the lowest performance (TOPEL M = 8.62, ECAD M = 2.62), followed by children who use HAs (TOPEL M = 10.76, ECAD M = 4.92), with children with normal having the best performance (TOPEL M = 15.56, ECAD M = 8.03). Children who use CIs have more difficulty with phoneme-level tasks than children who use HAs, which likely has implications for their future language and literacy development.