The study, conducted by researchers Lynn K. Perry and Daniel S. Messinger of the University of Miami College of Arts and Sciences and researcher Ivette Cejas of the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, sheds light on the relationship between early vocabulary knowledge and later language. development in children with a cochlear implant.

The researchers focused on the proportion of form-based nouns in children’s initial vocabularies. Shape-based nouns are words like “chair” or “cup” that describe a category of objects based on their shape rather than other characteristics such as color or material.

Their findings, published in Developmental scienceshow that a higher proportion of form-based nouns in a child’s vocabulary shortly after cochlear implantation was associated with better language development over the next three years.

The researchers also found that the association between shape-based nouns and long-term language development was stronger in children who received cochlear implants compared to children with normal hearing. The results have implications for efforts to help hearing-impaired children overcome initial language delays caused by a lack of auditory input and access to speech sounds before receiving cochlear implants.

“Learning more form-based nouns seemed to affect both how many words they knew as well as their grammatical skills and other aspects of language,” said Perry, the paper’s first author and an associate professor in the Department of Psychology. “Especially for children with cochlear implants, it was such a strong predictor that even three years later, we were able to account for some of the differences in their language abilities.”

The data used in this study were collected as part of the Study of Childhood Development after Cochlear Implantation, a national, multisite longitudinal study. The researchers analyzed data on the language skills of young children with cochlear implants before their implant surgery and every six months after implantation. They also analyzed data on children with normal hearing who were recruited from kindergartens.

The study, which was supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders of the National Institutes of Health, found that children with a higher proportion of form-based nouns in their vocabularies shortly after implantation had larger vocabularies at one year, two years and three years after implantation. They also scored higher on standardized tests of other language skills and were more likely to have caught up with their normal-hearing peers.

Previous studies have indicated the importance of shape-based nouns in the language development of children with normal hearing, and that picking up this pattern in early English vocabulary can help children acquire new words. But before this study, little was known about the role of shape-based nouns in the language development of children with cochlear implants.

“This is a true nature experiment showing that the types of words a child knows shapes their language development,” said Messinger, a professor in the Department of Psychology. “Remarkably, these effects were strongest for cochlear implant users, perhaps because shape-based nouns guided their word learning after the implants gave them access to hearing.”

The findings suggest that knowing shape-based nouns facilitates children’s language development and may help compensate for early language delays in children with cochlear implants.

“While cochlear implants have become the standard of care for children with severe to profound bilateral hearing loss, there continues to be significant variability in their spoken language development,” said Cejas, professor and director of family support services in the Department of Otolaryngology. at the Miller School of Medicine. “Our work highlights a potential avenue of intervention that may help close the vocabulary and language gap that exists for some of these children.”

Although the study found an association between the initial proportion of form-based nouns in a child’s vocabulary and later language development, the researchers said further investigation is needed to establish a causal link.

They also noted that they do not yet know why some children had a higher proportion of form-based nouns in their vocabulary than others.

“Both within the group of children who have cochlear implants and children in general, we see differences in the words children learn first,” Perry said. “I think finding out where those differences come from will be important to knowing how to best support all learners.”