Children with hearing loss are at risk for developing psychosocial problems. Children with mild to severe hearing loss are less frequently subject to research, in particular in preschool, and we therefore know less about the risk in this particular group. To address this, we compared psychosocial functioning in thirty-five 4-5-year olds with hearing aids to that of 180 typically hearing children. Parent ratings of psychosocial functioning and social skills, as well as scores of receptive vocabulary, were obtained. Children with hearing loss evidenced more psychosocial problems than hearing agemates. Female gender and early detection of hearing loss predicted better psychosocial functioning among children with hearing loss, whereas vocabulary and degree of hearing loss did not. Early intervention addressing psychosocial functioning is warranted for children with all degrees of hearing loss, including mild and moderate. Gender differences should be investigated in future research.

No abstract

Deaf and hard of hearing school-aged children are at risk for delayed development of emotion understanding; however, little is known about this during the preschool years. We compared the level of emotion understanding in a group of 35 4–5-year-old children who use hearing aids to that of 130 children with typical hearing. Moreover, we investigated the parents’ perception of their child's level of emotion understanding. Children were assessed with the Test of Emotion Comprehension. Parents were presented with the same test and asked to guess what their child answered on each item. The results showed that children with hearing loss performed at the same level as typically hearing children, despite having lower vocabulary scores. Parents of children with hearing loss were more accurate in their estimations of their child's competence, and higher accuracy was associated with better emotion understanding. These findings may have implications for early intervention planning.

Universal newborn hearing screening is effective only when it leads to audiological and educational follow-up. The purpose of our study was to detect the essential factors that contribute to a high-quality follow-up to families with referred babies after hearing screening in Norway. In-depth interviews of six families were performed, as well as a web-based survey focusing on information needs. Informants were families of children born from 2003 to 2009 who did not pass hearing screening. Our findings stress the importance of comprehensive information given at an early stage, although this also may be overwhelming to many families. From the point of screening and throughout audiological, medical, developmental, and educational follow-up, parents react to the quality of information, affecting their trust in professionals. This is particularly evident when decisions need to be made based on ambiguous information. Dilemmas and challenges for professionals providing information to families are explored, and factors contributing to a high-quality follow-up are described.Learning Outcomes: As a result of this article, the participant will be able to (1) identify the challenges professionals meet when providing information to parents, and (2) list at least three measures that facilitate parents' access to information.Families of children with a newly diagnosed hearing loss have changed over the past decade. Following universal newborn hearing screening (UNHS), we now meet parents at an