Pilot testing of a parent-directed intervention (Project ASPIRE) for underserved children who are deaf or hard of hearing

Abstract

This pilot study explored the potential for Project ASPIRE to effect behavior change in a sample of 11 parents of children with hearing loss who were from typically underserved populations, such as families from backgrounds of low socioeconomic status or families who speak English as a second language. The study consisted of one education session, five 16-hour home audio environment recordings, and four linguistic feedback reviews. The educational session focused on child language development and early language environment enrichment strategies. Parents received ‘quantitative linguistic feedback’ on the home audio recordings to further support behavior change through increased awareness of linguistic behaviors. The audio recordings were completed with the Language ENvironment Analysis system. This system measured parental linguistic behavior (adult word count or AWC), child linguistic behavior (child vocalization count or CVC), and child–parent interactive linguistic behavior (conversational turn count or CTC). Post-intervention both CTC and CVC had increased significantly compared to pre-intervention recording counts (p < 0.01; p < 0.05). Increase in AWC trended towards significance between pre- and post-intervention recordings (p < 0.1). These preliminary findings support ‘quantitative linguistic feedback’ as a viable behavior change strategy for enriching children’s early language environments through parental linguistic behaviors.

Speech Intelligibility in Deaf Children After Long-Term Cochlear Implant Use

“…This suggests that maximizing the amount of spoken language that a prelingually deaf child is exposed to early on after receiving a CI could be important for optimizing language outcomes in those children. This is exactly the intervention strategy advocated recently by several developmental scientists who study language outcome gaps in CI users (Sacks et al, 2014) as well as family income–based language outcome gaps in NH populations (Hart & Risley, 1995; Leffel & Suskind, 2013; Weisleder & Fernald, 2014). …”

Deaf Children as ‘English Learners’: The Psycholinguistic Turn in Deaf Education

“…Like many of her colleagues since, Grant argued for service provision in the family's home language, explaining that even though the vast majority of parents want English to be the ultimate outcome for their children, it is not possible to offer counseling to parents in a language they do not understand. More recently, Sacks et al [23] have worked on developing effective ways to help Spanish-speaking parents foster the spoken language development of their deaf children. In a pilot study on the effectiveness of Project ASPIRE (Achieving Superior Parental Involvement for Rehabilitative Excellence), the researchers worked with eleven parents of deaf children from typically underserved populations, including five parents who spoke Spanish at home.…”

An Introduction to the Outcomes of Children with Hearing Loss Study

“…Several find that maternal education level predicts language outcomes in children with HL (Fitzpatrick et al 2007; Sarant et al 2009; Fitzpatrick et al 2011; Ching et al 2013; Porter et al 2014), but others do not (Pressman et al 1999; Yoshinaga-Itano et al 1998). Further study of the ways in which variations in maternal education level may impact the outcomes of CHH is needed so that interventions can be altered to address the needs of families with fewer resources (Holte et al 2012; Sacks et al 2013). Socioeconomic status is either controlled for or examined as a predictor in the OCHL study when exploring the effects of various moderators on outcomes.…”