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Altered age-related changes in theta and beta oscillatory dynamics serving semantic processing in children who are hard-of-hearing

Poster Session B - Sunday, March 8, 2026, 8:00 – 10:00 am PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Zhiying Shen^1,2,3 (), Jack Carroll^1,2, Clare Reinhart^1,2, Grace Salloum^1,2, Elizabeth A. Walker⁴, Ryan W. McCreery^2,5, Elizabeth Heinrichs-Graham^1,2,3; ¹Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, NE, USA, ²Center for Pediatric Brain Health, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, NE, USA, ³Creighton University School of Medicine, Omaha, NE, USA, ⁴Wendell Johnson Speech and Hearing Center, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA, ⁵Audibility, Perception, and Cognition Laboratory, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, NE, USA

Despite early detection and intervention, children who are hard-of-hearing (CHH) are at persistent risk for language delays compared to children with normal hearing (CNH). There is also substantial variability in language outcomes for CHH, but the root of this variability is unclear. An investigation of the neural dynamics underlying language processing may hold promise to determine the root of this variability. The present study aimed to characterize the neural dynamics serving semantic processing in CHH and CNH. A sample of 50 CHH and 66 CNH ages 7-15 years completed a semantic judgment task during magnetoencephalography (MEG). In the task, participants were asked to determine whether a pair of words were semantically related. MEG data was preprocessed and transformed into the time-frequency domain. Significant oscillatory responses were imaged using beamforming, and the effects of group, age, and brain-behavior relationships were evaluated. We found CHH were less accurate on the task than CNH and showed a steeper age-related improvement. Significant task-related theta and beta responses were found throughout a distributed language network. Whole-brain linear mixed effects modelling revealed that CHH showed steeper age-related beta power decreases throughout anterior prefrontal cortex, ventral occipitotemporal cortex, and cuneus, as well as steeper age-related theta reductions in the inferior frontal gyrus and right superior temporal gyrus compared to CNH. These data suggest that hearing loss is associated with altered retrieval and control sub-processes of semantic processing during language development in youth, which could be used to inform the root of variability in outcomes in CHH.

Topic Area: LANGUAGE: Semantic