The play patterns of young hearing-impaired children with their hearing and hearing-impaired peers.

Abstract

An observational study was conducted examining the social and cognitive play of young children with hearing-impairment playing in small groups composed of both hearing and hearing-impaired peers. The questions addressed the effects of the hearing status of the play partner upon the social/cognitive play patterns of children with hearing-impairment, and the relationship between their play patterns and their communicative competence, social competence and speech intelligibility. Forty-eight hearing-impaired subjects ranging in age from 3-6 to 6-1 were observed playing with partners of same and different hearing status during integrated play sessions at 13 school sites. The social play categories included solitary, parallel and group play, while the cognitive play categories included functional, constructive and dramatic play. Results of the study showed that the play patterns of the hearing-impaired children differed significantly for each group of partners. When playing with hearing-impaired partners, subjects engaged in group functional and constructive play more frequently than parallel functional and constructive play, and with equal frequency in parallel dramatic and group dramatic play. When playing with hearing partners, subjects engaged with equal frequency in group and parallel play. When playing with mixed groups of hearing and hearing-impaired partners, subjects engaged in group dramatic play more frequently than parallel dramatic play, and with equal frequency in group functional and constructive play, and parallel functional and constructive play. Communicative competence was negatively correlated to functional play. A positive correlation was found between social competence and constructive play, and between speech intelligibility and dramatic play. These correlations remained significant when age was partialed out. The hearing-impaired subjects spent similar percentages of time in social/cognitive play as those reported for hearing children. The study supports the premise that the play of young hearing-impaired children varies according to the hearing status of the play partner and is neither delayed nor deficient.