Language and executive function in Mandarin-speaking deaf and hard-of-hearing children aged 3–5

The study aimed to explore spoken language and executive function (EF) characteristics in 3–5-year-old prelingually deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children, and evaluate the impact of demographic variables and EF on spoken language skills. 48 DHH children and 48 typically developing children who use auditory-oral communication were recruited. All participants underwent EF tests, including auditory working memory (WM), inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and the EF performance reported by parents. Using Mandarin Clinical Evaluation of Language for Preschoolers (MCELP), vocabulary comprehension, sentence comprehension, vocabulary naming, sentence structure imitation, and story narration were evaluated only in the DHH group, and their results were compared with the typical developmental level provided by MCELP. Results showed that DHH children exhibit deficiencies in different spoken language domains and EF components. While the spoken language skills of DHH children tend to improve as they age, a growing proportion of individuals fail to reach the typical developmental level. The spoken language ability in DHH children was positively correlated with age and EFs, and negatively correlated with aided hearing threshold, while auditory WM could positively predict their spoken language performance.