Hemispheric specialization for speech perception in four-year-old children from low and middle socio-economic classes.

Four-year-old male and female children from low and middle socio-economic class (SEC) were presented a dichotic syllable task. Both low and middle SEC males evidenced significant right-ear advantages. Neither low nor middle SEC females evidenced a significant right-ear advantage. The similar ear advantage in the low and middle SEC populations replicates a previous study with six-year-olds and suggests that the variations in rearing conditions which occur in low and middle SEC classes does not affect hemispheric lateralization for speech perception.

Assessment of language comprehension of 6-year-old deaf children.

Sixty-five 6-yr-old children from the New York State Schools for the Deaf were given the assessment of children's language comprehension (ACLC), administered orally and manually, along with a specially designed test of receptive language, the syntax screening test. The responses on the ACLC were analyzed according to selected word types. The test stimuli were analyzed and classified into a hierarchy of linguistic complexity to evaluate the children's comprehension of various linguistic structures. Results show that comprehension of word types (nouns, verbs, etc.) and linguistic structure can be orderly, producing a hierarchy of complexity similar to that found in normally hearing children. However, performance was about 3 yr behind that of normally hearing peers.

The cognitive use of language by disadvantaged and nondisadvantaged children.

The cognitive use of language was evaluated among sixth-grade disadvantaged and nondisadvantaged children by eliciting spontaneous language samples in response to a series of 14 auditory stimuli, each depicting one or more human and/or mechanical sounds. -responses were analyzed according to the following dimensions: (a) units of thought: (b) concept formation; (c) parts of the sound responded to; (d) integration; (e) manner of verbalization; and (f) identification. Disadvantaged children manifested significantly fewer units of thought than their advantage counterparts. Several significant trends were noted for several of the remaining dimensions and were discussed. The general cognitive styles of the subject groups were related to the field-dependency-independency dichotomy described in the literature by Witkin and his associates.

Speech and language assessment scales of deaf children.

Six year old deaf children with an average PTA of 105.7 dB were evaluated for speech and language skills using rating scales. Five rating scales were designed to assess language production, sign ability, overall communication skills, speech reception and speech intelligibility. Each scale incorporated five categories ranging from inability to complete ability to demonstrate a given skill. For several ratings, classroom teachers, given instruction, were asked to make judgments which were later correlated with examiner's scores, Mean ratings indicate that comprehension skills superceded performance skills. A hierarchy of ability among communication skills can be seen.