THIS STUDY INVESTIGATED CHILDREN'S perspectives on their hearing during group activities in a preschool setting. A case study design framed by a children's participatory rights perspective was used. The sample included 69 children aged three to five years in a regional Australian preschool. Children completed self-report booklets about their hearing. Parents completed surveys indicating children's health conditions and identified hearing issues. Results suggest that children have most difficulty hearing while other children are talking and when sitting at the back of the mat, and that most children who report hearing difficulties during group time have not been formally identified with a hearing problem. Implications for ensuring children can hear optimally in early childhood group-time situations are discussed. Given the focus in past research on adults' reports of children's hearing, the importance of gaining children's perspectives of their hearing in the early childhood setting by using self-report methods is also discussed.
This study investigated children's and early childhood educators' perspectives on the impact of a sound amplification system in a preschool setting. The sample included 69 children aged 3-5 years and nine early childhood educators from a preschool in regional Australia. Children completed selfreport booklets, rating how well they could hear in group time situations prior to and after the implementation of a sound amplification system. Early childhood educators completed an adapted version of the Listening Inventory for Education-Revised, rating the children's hearing and listening.Quantitative analyses indicated that children's hearing and listening improved, as reported by both educators and children. Qualitative analyses indicated that children and educators felt positive about the sound amplification system, that children could hear other children better, particularly at news time, that it helped children with speech difficulties to be better understood, and that it improved the confidence of the quieter children with speaking in front of the group.
This article discusses infant–toddler educators’ perspectives of using the Observe, Reflect, Improve Children’s Learning tool (ORICL) in practice. ORICL is a new tool informed by implementation science and co-designed with Australian early childhood education and care policy-makers, practitioners, and service providers. It aims to support infant–toddler educators to observe, reflect on, assess, and improve the quality of individual children’s learning experiences. Twenty-one educators working in Australian long day care and family day care services participated in the study, with a total of 66 ORICLs being completed for children ranging from 7 to 33 months of age. Educators also participated in an interview to share their experiences of using ORICL in practice. Findings show that ORICL enhanced educators’ understandings of infants’ and toddlers’ learning, development and wellbeing, and educators’ critical reflection. ORICL also helped educators to notice interactions, document and plan for children’s learning, and communicate children’s learning to others.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.