Longitudinal Study of Narrative Development in Deaf and Hearing Children: Contributions of Executive Functions and Vocabulary

Narratives are part of children's everyday language interactions and an important precursor to broader competences such as literacy. This longitudinal study explores the development of spoken narrative skills in a large group of typically hearing and deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children. Narrative skills, executive functions and vocabulary were assessed at two time points and relations between these factors analysed. Data were collected from 30 DHH children and 42 hearing age‐matched controls. Children were 6–11 years old at the first assessment point and retested two years later. Both groups improved their narrative scores over time. Despite a delay at T1, the DHH group narrowed the gap with their hearing peers two years later. EF predicted hearing but not DHH children's narrative development. In contrast, vocabulary predicted narrative for both groups. This study demonstrates that DHH children improve their narrative skills over time. There is a different association between EF and narrative in DHH children, which may be related to their wider spoken language development delays. This possibility is discussed along with clinical implications for future language interventions with DHH children.