Examination of relationship between written language skills and level of hearing in 10-14 years old hearing impaired children

Examination of Relationship Between Written Language Skills and Level of Hearing in 10-14 Years Old Hearing Impaired ChildrenThe written language skills have an important place in individuals? social and academic life. The most important factor which influences the written language skills is the development of language skills. Poor language development of hearing loss individuals encounter with problems in writing skills. Written language skills of hearing impaired children is linked to their language level, language use objectives and appropriate education and education environment.It is aimed in this study to evaluate written language skill level and student characteristics thought to have an impact on skill level of the hearing-impaired students in integrated education in Elazığ. Fourtyfive students at 4-7 primarylevel, from whom 25 hearing impaired that 16 hearing aided, 9 cochlear implanted and 20 normal hearing, were included to this study. Immitancemetricexamination, otoacoustic emission testing, pure tone audiometry and free field audiometry where made to the students. ?A Written Expression Skills Assessment Form? is used for data collection and evaluation about written language skill.Level of the written expression skills of hearing impaired students werefound significantly lower than normal hearing students (p<0.01). The relationships between level of the written expression skill and degree of the hearing loss, duration of auditory deprivation, speech discrimination scores, state of pre-school education were found statistically significant (p<0.05). The relationship betwen the socio-economic status and level of the written expression skill was not found statistically significant (p>0.05).As a result, it can be said that hearing loss negatively affects written language skill and individuals with hearing loss develop lower written language skill level than their peers. However, the results suggests that individuals, who have begun to use hearing aid and cochlear implant especially in prelingual period, can receive education together with their normal hearing peers and improve their written language skill.Keywords: Hearing impairment, Auditory deprivation, Written skills based.