Abstract
The present study evaluated the efficacy of a new preschool early literacy intervention created specifically for deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children with functional hearing. Teachers implemented Foundations for Literacy with 25 DHH children in 2 schools (intervention group). One school used only spoken language, and the other used sign with and without spoken language. A “business as usual” comparison group included 33 DHH children who were matched on key characteristics with the intervention children but attended schools that did not implement Foundations for Literacy. Children’s hearing losses ranged from moderate to profound. Approximately half of the children had cochlear implants. All children had sufficient speech perception skills to identify referents of spoken words from closed sets of items. Teachers taught small groups of intervention children an hour a day, 4 days a week for the school year. From fall to spring, intervention children made significantly greater gains on tests of phonological awareness, letter–sound knowledge, and expressive vocabulary than did comparison children. In addition, intervention children showed significant increases in standard scores (based on hearing norms) on phonological awareness and vocabulary tests. This quasi-experimental study suggests that the intervention shows promise for improving early literacy skills of DHH children with functional hearing.
Highlights
The present study evaluated the efficacy of a new preschool early literacy intervention created for deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children with functional hearing
We developed Foundations based on evidence about effective literacy interventions with hearing children but with specific adaptations to meet the needs of DHH children with functional hearing because of our theoretical assumption that early literacy intervention should differ for DHH children with and without functional hearing (Lederberg et al, 2013)
We addressed two research questions: 1. To what extent do children taught with Foundations show accelerated learning from fall to spring compared to hearing children? We hypothesized that intervention children would have these accelerated gains because researchers have found that effective early childhood programs result in such accelerated gains in DHH children (Hayes et al, 2009; Nittrouer, 2010)
Summary
The present study evaluated the efficacy of a new preschool early literacy intervention created for deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children with functional hearing. Intervention children showed significant increases in standard scores (based on hearing norms) on phonological awareness and vocabulary tests This quasi-experimental study suggests that the intervention shows promise for improving early literacy skills of DHH children with functional hearing. Whereas we have made considerable gains in our understanding of early literacy interventions for hearing children, we know much less about facilitating the development of these skills for DHH children (Easterbrooks & Beal-Alvarez, 2013; Schirmer & McGough, 2005). Teachers implemented the yearlong Foundations intervention with 25 DHH children We examined these DHH children’s gains in phonological awareness, alphabetic knowledge, and vocabulary from fall to spring of the school year compared to gains of DHH children matched on key characteristics, but who did not participate in the intervention (i.e., a business as usual control group). We compared intervention children’s gains with gains made by hearing children in the tests’ normative samples
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