White, D.A.; Costa, E.A.; Mellon, N.; Ouellette, M.; Ottley, S.W. Working Memory and Language Relate to Report of Socio-Emotional Functioning in Children with Hearing Loss. J. Clin. Med.2024, 13, 1637.
White, D.A.; Costa, E.A.; Mellon, N.; Ouellette, M.; Ottley, S.W. Working Memory and Language Relate to Report of Socio-Emotional Functioning in Children with Hearing Loss. J. Clin. Med. 2024, 13, 1637.
White, D.A.; Costa, E.A.; Mellon, N.; Ouellette, M.; Ottley, S.W. Working Memory and Language Relate to Report of Socio-Emotional Functioning in Children with Hearing Loss. J. Clin. Med.2024, 13, 1637.
White, D.A.; Costa, E.A.; Mellon, N.; Ouellette, M.; Ottley, S.W. Working Memory and Language Relate to Report of Socio-Emotional Functioning in Children with Hearing Loss. J. Clin. Med. 2024, 13, 1637.
Abstract
Children with hearing loss have been found to have significantly more behavioral and emotional challenges than their typically hearing peers, though these outcomes are variable at the individual level. Working memory deficits have been found to relate to executive functioning and overall emotion regulation, leading to behavior challenges. Language development is essential for development of social relationships and communicating one’s needs - this may lead to distress when children cannot communicate effectively. Based on prior findings in children with hearing loss and their typically hearing peers, working memory and language skills were hypothesized to be related to parent and teacher report of socioemotional functioning. Participants were 35 children with hearing loss (66% female, M = 5.17 years old, SD = ±1.97) whose language, working memory, and socioemotional functioning were evaluated during the course of treatment and educational planning. Bivariate analyses indicated that working memory was related to a number of socioemotional domains (e.g., functional communication, atypicality, withdrawal), as were language scores (e.g., social skills, inattention). The direction of these associations was such that stronger working memory and language skills were related to more regulated socioemotional functioning. A call to action of the current study includes more education with regard to profiles and presentations of children with hearing loss, and an early focus on socioemotional learning to foster the development of regulatory skills.
Keywords
Hearing Loss; Childhood; Working Memory; Language; Socioemotional
Subject
Social Sciences, Psychology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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