Conversational-Communicative Experience and Theory of Mind: A Study of Diverse Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children.

Purpose: Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children's language development and delays are well documented, yet less is known about their delays in theory of mind (ToM) development. Importantly, conversational-communicative experiences, language competence, and teacher/parent influences loom large. The present study examined ToM development and the potential factors underlying such delays in DHH children varying in the nature of their conversational-communicative experiences, particularly their hearing and signing experiences.

Method: Three groups of 5- to 9-year-old DHH children were tested between 2012 and 2014 (N = 210; 59% White; 58% female) for their language and ToM: children acquiring only spoken English (n = 59), children acquiring only sign (n = 97), and bimodal children acquiring both (n = 54).

Results: For children acquiring only spoken English, more accumulated hearing experience, indexed by the length of using advanced hearing devices, improved their ToM. For children acquiring only sign, more signing experience, indexed by having a signing DHH parent, improved their ToM. For bimodal children acquiring both, accumulated hearing and signing experiences are influential. Language competence mediated this relationship for all groups.

Conclusion: These findings demonstrate the importance of communicative-conversational experience, in the form of both signing and hearing, for ToM development generally and for diverse DHH children specifically.

Supplemental material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.29847383.