Language processing speed in school students with hearing loss: A review

For effective learning in classroom settings, it is critical that students comprehend spoken and written language rapidly. If language processing is slow, children may miss content in lessons, struggle to participate effectively in group work, and be disadvantaged in high-stakes assessment tasks. Rapid language processing may be challenging for students with hearing loss using hearing aids or cochlear implants. They may process language more slowly than peers with normal hearing due to either contemporaneous signal degradation from their hearing devices, or “fuzzy” mental representation of language resulting from degraded input during language acquisition. A better understanding of language processing speed in students with hearing loss is urgently required to provide the basis for appropriate classroom support strategies and provisions in assessment tasks. This review of the current state of knowledge on language processing speed in school-age children with hearing loss will demonstrate that while some research does find slow language processing at the word and sentence level in this population, this may be modulated by factors including task difficulty and degree of hearing loss. Priority areas for future research, including processing speed at the paragraph/discourse level and the relationship between spoken and written language processing speed, will also be highlighted.