The Comparison of Language Development and Lexical Awareness Indexes in Bilingual (Azeri- Persian) Hard of Hearing and Normal Children

Regarding the impact of bilingualism and cochlear implantation on the language development and metalinguistic skills, examining these skills in bilingual children in different languages, especially bilingual children with normal and cochlear implantation, can lead us to a greater recognition of the language development in children and the related factors. The present study aims to investigate and compare the mean length of utterance and lexical richness with lexical awareness (content and structural aspect) between the normal and cochlear implantation children in the first grade in Persian and Azeri.   Six bilingual children with cochlear implantation were selected from the first grade of exceptional school in city of Zanjan in year 97-98 and six normal counterparts were selected matched for gender, age, and socio-economic conditions. Then, mean length of utterance and lexical richness were compared with metalinguistic skills tests. For studying mean length of utterance and lexical richness, continuous speech test and for studying metalinguistic skills, lexical awareness test (including content and structural aspect of word definition) were used. Data analysis in Azeri language showed that mean lengthof utterance and lexical richness in thefirst grade of hard of hearing bilingual children with cochlear implantation in Azeri- Persian is delayed (p<0.05). But in Persian language of language development indices, only the mean lengthof utterance is delayed (p<0.05). No significant difference was found in any of content and structural aspects of lexical awareness definition in hard of hearing children with cochlear implantation (p>0.05). The low level of meta-language proficiency of subjects in metalinguistic tests in Azeri language can be attributed to the official teaching of Persian language in schools. Consistent with the results of this study, the mean continuous speech scores showed that the performance of the first grade of normal bilingual children in lexical richness and Mean length of utterance in Persian language is better than bilingual children with cochlear implantation.