The paper presents research paradigms which study factors that allow influencing the language development of children with mild intellectual disabilities to the greatest extent possible. Special ...attention is dedicated to the development of the reception competence with the use of reception didactics methods based on a relatively frequent use of less demanding non-language semiotic functions. The core of the paper presents results of an experimental case study (on a sample of five children with a mild intellectual disability over a one school year period), through which the reception competence in these children was developed with a systematic use of an adapted communication model of literary education as an experimental factor. The results have confirmed the initially set hypothesis about reception progress.
One of the most important purposes of using a hearing aid is to improve speech reception. But many children with hearing impairments cannot understand the speech heard with a hearing aid, because ...their phonetic system, which is indispensable for speech reception, is incomplete. The phonetic system is acquired during infancy, from hearing speech daily. Therefore, it was assumed that improvement of the aided hearing threshold (AHT) would accelerate the development of speech reception competence. Subjects in this study were 12 children, 4 to 12 years old, with hearing impairment, who used behind-the-ear hearing aids. They had not been able to turn the acoustic gain up loud enough to acquire a phonetic system because, when they did, there was a "howling" sound. For this study, instead of their own ear molds, a new type ear mold was used that can eliminate this howling sound. The new type of ear molds is made of epoxy resin, coated with silicone resin. When the acoustic gain could then be increased, the children's aided hearing threshold (AHT) improved. Over a period of 12 months, their speech reception competences were measured in terms of the amount of transmitted information and the ratio of correctness. The results were as follows: 7 of the 12 children with hearing impairment showed development in their speech reception. This result indicates that the improvement of aided hearing threshold (AHT) accelerates the development of speech reception competence. All subjects who showed this development of speech reception competence were under 9 years old. No subject whose mean aided hearing threshold (AHT) was more than about 60dBSPL showed development of speech reception competence. These facts suggest the following: 1. The acquisition of speech reception competence is closely connected with the age of the child with hearing impairment. 2. The primary development of speech reception competence is accelerated when the mean aided hearing threshold (AHT) is less than about 60dBSPL.
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