Assessing Vocal Development in Infants and Toddlers Who Are Hard of Hearing: A Parent-Report Tool

Abstract

The main purpose of the current investigation was to determine whether the Vocal Development Landmarks Interview-Experimental Version (VDLI-E) was sensitive to variation in the vocal development of infants and toddlers who are hard of hearing. The VDLI-E is an interactive parent interview that uses audio samples of authentic infant vocalizations to make targeted vocal behaviors clear and understandable to parents without the need for technical terms, verbal descriptions, or adult modeling of infant productions. The VDLI-E was found to be sensitive to age and hearing and was related to performance on concurrent measures of early auditory skills, expressive vocabulary, and overall expressive language abilities. These findings provide preliminary support for the utility of this measure in monitoring the impact of early auditory experiences on vocal development for 6- to 18-month-old children who are hard of hearing.

Figure 1

Slide used when querying parents regarding reduplicated and variegated babble sequences.

Figure 2

Boxplots displaying subscale and total scores for each age group in cross-sectional data for the hard-of hearing-group. The boxes represent the 25th to 75th percentile (interquartile range) and the whiskers represent the minimum and maximum values, except where indicated by circles and asterisks representing outlier scores. Solid lines represent the medians.

Figure 3

Boxplots displaying total and subscale scores for each time point for the 16 hard-of-hearing children contributing longitudinal data. The boxes represent the 25th to 75th percentile (interquartile range) and the whiskers represent the minimum and maximum values, except where indicated by circles and asterisks representing outlier scores. Solid lines represent the medians.

Figure 4

Scatterplot of the relationship between better-ear pure tone average and total score for 80 hard-of-hearing children in the cross-sectional data set, with regression lines for each age group.

Figure 5

Boxplots displaying total and subscale scores for typically hearing (TH) and hard of hearing (HH) 18-month groups. The boxes represent the 25th to 75th percentile (interquartile range) and the whiskers represent the minimum and maximum values, except where indicated by circles and asterisks representing outlier scores. Solid lines represent the medians.