Early Hearing Loss and Language Outcomes: A Review and Case Study

Early hearing loss is a widespread medical and developmental concern that affects over 1 in 500 infants (Mehl, 1998). Hearing impairments in children have been linked to a variety of adverse developmental outcomes, including poor speech and language ability and difficulties with cognition and social-emotional adjustment. Early intervention has been demonstrated to be one of the most important factors in influencing outcomes for children born with congenital hearing loss (Vohr et al., 2008). This review and case study aims to outline the connection between early hearing loss, intervention, and speech/language abilities by exploring the case of a 13-month-old infant with early hearing loss. KD, the subject of interest, was born with bilateral moderate/severe sensorineural hearing loss and received amplification at three months of age. After undergoing several speech and language evaluations, KD was found to have above average linguistic abilities, suggesting that her early hearing loss has not hindered her development in this area, thus far