Browsing by Author "Siltanen, Ilona"

Objectives. Semantic verbal fluency task is a naming task in which a participant produces words from a certain semantic category during limited time frame. Currently there is only a little research where the verbal fluency performance of young children, especially with hearing impairment has been studied, and findings have not been consistent. The question whether singing is associated with verbal fluency performance has not been studied much. The aim of this thesis was to compare verbal fluency performance of children with hearing impairment and normal hearing children. In addition, the aim was to investigate the association of singing with the semantic verbal fluency performance. Methods. This study sample contained 14 children with hearing impairment and 12 children with normal hearing. Participants performed two semantic verbal fluency tasks where they produced words from categories of animals and clothes for 60 seconds. The number of produced words and accepted words and semantic strategies (number of clusters, switches, semantic subcategories, the use of semantic strategy and the number of words in clusters) were examined. Amount of singing was investigated by means of questionnaire. Statistical methods were used to investigate differences between study groups and to investigate connection of singing and verbal fluency performance. Results and conclusions. The differences between the groups of children with hearing impairment and normal hearing children were not significant. Singing was associated with verbal fluency performance only in the group of children with hearing impairment and only in the animal task. Hearing impaired children who sang daily produced more words and used more word finding strategies than hearing impaired children who sang more seldom. The findings of previous studies are partly parallel to the findings of this thesis. However more research is needed for getting more consistent findings and more comprehensive research literature of the subject.