Assessing Communication and SocialEmotional Development in Children Who Are Deaf and Hard of Hearing

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Assessing Communication and Social/Emotional
Developmentin Children Who Are Deaf and Hard of
Hearing Infancy to Early School Age

• Janet R. Jamieson Susan Lane
• Educational Counselling BC Family Hearing
• Psychology, Special Ed. Resource Centre
• UBC

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How Does Hearing Loss Impact Development?

• Early infancy
• mother-infant courtship dance
• synchronous vs. asynchronous communication
• hearing loss affects every aspects of
  psychological development in a bidirectional way
• social-emotional
• language
• cognitive

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How Does Hearing Loss Impact Social-emotional
Development?

• From the Parents Perspective
• parental grieving (anger and denial)
• parents may not make necessary adjustments to
  communication
• increased control
• in communication
• in behaviour
• what is the impact of this increased control on
  the child?

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How Does Hearing Loss Impact Social-emotional
Development?

• From the Childs Perspective
• inability to predict what will happen next
• resulting frustration
• fear of taking risks (e.g., new settings, new
  experiences)
• increased dependence on others
• sense of isolation and loneliness
• preference for peers with same hearing status

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How Does Hearing Loss Impact Language
Development?

• From the Parents Perspective
• lack of expected response
• spirals of increasing control
• difficulty with turn-taking
• increased use of directions, 2-choice questions,
  air time

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How Does Hearing Loss Impact Language
Development?

• From the Childs Perspective
• may be delayed, but not deviant
• approx. 1/3 of deaf children have other
  disabilities (leading to possible language
  disorder)
• inability to divide attention between visual and
  auditory cues
• strong reliance on visual cues

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Overall, then...

• Language development includes
• phonology
• semantics / morphology
• syntax
• Neurologically, there are many paths to language
  development
• Focus on the process dont worry if a path is
  unique

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How Does Hearing Loss Impact Cognitive
Development?

• A learning cycle has been created
• the child does not respond as expected
• the parent reacts by taking control
• the child has less room to take risks, unless she
  does so quickly

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We assess young children to...

• determine if child needs help
• design an appropriate plan
• monitor change in child and family to determine
  if intervention is resulting in positive outcomes

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What we look at when we assess...

• child-caregiver interactions
• listening
• play
• vocalizations / speech
• gestures
• vocabulary development
• combining of words / signs
• pragmatics

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What assessment tools do you use?

• 1.
• 2.
• 3.
• 4
• 5.
• etc..

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Special Considerations when Assessing a Child
with a Hearing Loss

• What language systems surround the child?
• What is the childs preferred modality (vision or
  hearing)?
• Are there idiosyncracies in the childs use of
  the language system?

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Special Considerations when Assessing a Child
with a Hearing Loss

• Bottom line 1 During assessments, use the
  childs preferred language, and receive input
  from informants across contexts.
• Bottom line 2 For non-English-speaking hearing
  parents, use culturally sensitive interpreters
  and and at least one parent report instrument
  that is valid for the home.

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Special Considerations in Test Selection and
Interpretation of Results

• Both formal and informal assessments are needed.
• Most formal tests are normed on hearing children
• some tests unfairly penalize deaf children and
  make their language appear more delayed than it
  is
• procedures may differ from standardized test
• question the value of comparing the performance
  of younger hearing children with older deaf
  children
• make sure some part of assessment occurs in
  relevant communication context

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Other Professionals Who May Be Involved in the
Assessment of a Child with a Hearing Loss

• Medical
• Family Physician
• Ear, Nose, Throat Physician (ENT)
• Audiologist
• Habilitation
• Teacher of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing
• Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP)
• Occupational Therapist
• Physical Therapist
• Aural Rehabilitationists
• Family Support
• Social Worker

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Videos Communicators in Action!

• E.L.R
• Joshua
• Sam

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Your (Very Important) Role in the Assessment of
Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children

• You are a key team member -- each member holds a
  piece of the puzzle
• The overall goal of intervention is to impact the
  communication system
• Select assessment tools carefully and interpret
  the results with caution