Language, communication and psychological well-being in young adults with hearing loss: a long-term follow-up.

The overall aim of this project is to investigate language and literacy in a group of Deaf and Hard of Hearing teenagers who took part in computer-assisted reading intervention ten years ago. We are also interested in investigating their current psychosocial wellbeing. All of them are fitted with cochlear implants or hearing aids which they received in the mid 2000, at around 2 years of age. Average duration of unaided hearing loss varied between 4 and 7 months in this group, a much shorter period than in earlier follow-up studies. All participants have bilateral hearing aid technology. The results will be compared with Swedish norms for young adults with typical hearing. Within the project, a listening comprehension test is also developed where the data collection takes place at Örebro University.