Bongioletti, J.Doble, M.Purcell, A.2025-06-052025-06-052024Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 2024; 29(4):456-4661081-41591081-4159https://hdl.handle.net/2440/145019Technological and therapeutic advances have allowed many children who are born hard-of-hearing(HoH) to start school with age-appropriate spoken language skills, yet many of these children continue to find everyday conversations challenging. This scoping review maps the evidence related to development of conversation and pragmatic skills in children who are HoH and learning spoken language. There view followed Arksey and O’Malley’s methodological framework and the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines. Quality appraisal, data extraction, and thematic analysis were used to describe the data. Systematic searches identified 36 articles for inclusion. Sample sizes were small and heterogenous.Most studies focused on school-aged children with severe hearing loss or greater. Methodological rigor varied.Thematic analysis revealed two global themes. First, children who are HoH continue to find conversation and pragmatics difficult to master, and second, there are a set of audiological, communication, environmental, and demographic characteristics that are associated with better conversation and pragmatic outcomes, some of which are fixed, where as others are malleable. Focused attention on designing valid and reliable assessments for conversation and pragmatic skills, and on developing therapeutic approaches targeting early conversation and pragmatic skill development, is needed to reduce the impact conversation and pragmatic differences across the lifespan.en© The Author(s) 2024. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Technological and therapeutic advances; born hard-of-hearing (HoH); conversation and pragmatic skills; ChildrenJournal article10.1093/deafed/enae011732135Bongioletti, J. [0000-0001-8156-8439]