Effects of mild and moderate hearing impairments on language, educational, and psychosocial behavior of children.

An extensive psychoeducational evaluation was administered to 40 hearing-impaired children to investigate the effects of degree of hearing impairment, age, and other factors on intellectual, social, academic, and language behavior. Although children varied greatly in performance, hearing loss of any degree appeared to affect psychoeducational development adversely, leading to the conclusion that even minimal hearing loss places children at risk for language and learning problems.