Communicative indicators, motor and cognitive development of hearing-impaired children

Introduction: For the assessment of child development in the deaf is effective protocols are needed for this population, as in Brazil, standardized tests for these children are still scarce 4.5. Thus, emphasis is placed on studying child development in deaf so that therapeutic and educational approaches are contemplated in accordance with the needs of each child. Objective: Analyze the performance of children with hearing defi cit in different areas: Communications-Issue, Communication-reception, aspects Motors and Cognitive Aspects of Language. Methods: We have carried out a comparative study in an institutional clinic with 109 children, divided into 60 hearing individuals with typical development and 49 with hearing loss, severe to profound. The performance index was calculated for each child in these four domains. The index was analysed according to the equation: (number of responses in each area / number of assessed behaviours) x100. Results: In all age groups, hearing-impaired children had a smaller performance when compared to hearing children in the Communication – Emission domain. The Communication-Reception domain showed signifi cant differences (p < 0.05) from the 12-to-23-months to the 60-to-71-months age groups. The Cognitive Aspects domain demonstrated a signifi cant difference (p < 0.01) between hearing-impaired and hearing children aged 24 to 35 months and onwards. Motor Aspects only had a signifi cant difference (p < 0.01) in the last two age groups, 48-59 months and 60-71 months. The signifi cance level was 5%. Conclusion: In all age groups, hearing-impaired children’s performance was worse when compared to hearing children. The intervention made by health professionals ought to take place as soon as possible in order to develop the cognitive, motor and language skills of the hearing-impaired child.