Phonological deterioration in adults with an acquired severe hearing impairment

The purpose of this study was to examine the phonological processing skills in individuals with an acquired severe hearing impairment. The subjects we re tested on cognitive tasks that vary in their demands on phonological pro cessing. The severely hearing impaired individuals performed at a significa ntly lower level on the word-word rhyme judgements task, but performed on a par with the control group on the picture-word rhyme judgements task and t he lexical decision-making task. The results indicate that the phonological processing skills in individuals who have acquired a severe hearing loss i n adult life deteriorate. The results are discussed with respect to theoret ical and clinical implications.