The study aimed to explore spoken language and executive function (EF) characteristics in 3–5-year-old prelingually deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children, and evaluate the impact of demographic variables and EF on spoken language skills. 48 DHH children and 48 typically developing children who use auditory-oral communication were recruited. All participants underwent EF tests, including auditory working memory (WM), inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and the EF performance reported by parents. Using Mandarin Clinical Evaluation of Language for Preschoolers (MCELP), vocabulary comprehension, sentence comprehension, vocabulary naming, sentence structure imitation, and story narration were evaluated only in the DHH group, and their results were compared with the typical developmental level provided by MCELP. Results showed that DHH children exhibit deficiencies in different spoken language domains and EF components. While the spoken language skills of DHH children tend to improve as they age, a growing proportion of individuals fail to reach the typical developmental level. The spoken language ability in DHH children was positively correlated with age and EFs, and negatively correlated with aided hearing threshold, while auditory WM could positively predict their spoken language performance.

中文翻译：

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3-5岁普通话聋哑儿童的语言和执行功能


该研究旨在探讨3-5岁语前聋哑和听力障碍（DHH）儿童的口语和执行功能（EF）特征，并评估人口统计变量和EF对口语技能的影响。招募了 48 名 DHH 儿童和 48 名使用听觉-口语交流的正常发育儿童。所有参与者均接受了 EF 测试，包括听觉工作记忆 (WM)、抑制控制、认知灵活性以及家长报告的 EF 表现。使用学前儿童普通话临床评估（MCELP），仅评估DHH组的词汇理解、句子理解、词汇命名、句子结构模仿和故事叙述，并将其结果与MCELP提供的典型发展水平进行比较。结果显示，DHH 儿童在不同口语领域和 EF 组成部分表现出缺陷。虽然 DHH 儿童的口语技能往往会随着年龄的增长而提高，但越来越多的人未能达到典型的发展水平。 DHH儿童的口语能力与年龄和EF呈正相关，与辅助听阈呈负相关，而听觉WM可以正向预测其口语表现。