The Effects of Language Developmental Delay on the Understanding of Emotion in Hearing Impaired Children

Min, Byoung Ran

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Commun Sci Disord. 2004;9(3): 177-191.

Byoung Ran Min^`

민병란(Byoung Ran Min)

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to examine how the language developmental delay of hearing-impaired children influences on the understanding of emotion that is based on the given situation and on the children’s desires. The subjects were hearing impaired children(45 children aged from 4 to 6) and children with normal hearing(30 children aged from 4 to 5). After picture materials were presented to them, they were asked to identify whether the people in picture materials feel happy or sad on the basis of their desire, and to predict whether the people were happy, sad, afraid or angry in consideration of the given situation. The results of research showed that the performance of hearing impaired children was inferior to that of hearing children for both the desire and situational tasks. Second, the performance of hearing impaired children was related to their linguistic ability. Based on the finding of this study, we attempted to discuss the role of language in the understanding of emotion.