Alice Eriks-Brophy

The impact of newborn hearing screening on communication development

Objective: Universal newborn hearing screening has become standard practice in many countries. The primary goal of this study was to assess the impact of early identification of permanent childhood hearing loss on oral communication development. Setting: Participants were recruited from three clinical programmes in two cities in the province of Ontario, Canada. The study sample was born during two consecutive periods of newborn hearing screening. The first period, prior to 2002, was targeted on high-risk infants only, and the second, from 2002, included both high- and standard-risk infants (universal newborn hearing screening – UNHS). All children were enrolled in rehabilitation programmes focused on oral language development. Methods: In this multicentre observational study, 65 children under the age of five years with onset of hearing loss before six months of age, 26 identified through systematic newborn screening (14 through targeted screening and 12 through UNHS) and 39 without screening, were assessed with an extensive battery of child- and parent-administered speech and language measures. The degree of hearing loss ranged from mild to profound with 22 children in the mild, moderate and moderately severe categories and 43 in the severe and profound categories. Data are reported for the three-year study period. Results: The screened group of children was identified at a median age of 6.6 (interquartile range, 3.0–8.2) months and children referred from sources other than newborn screening were diagnosed at a median age of 16.5 (interquartile range, 10.2–29.0) months. Assessment of oral communication development showed no significant difference between the screened and unscreened groups. The communication outcomes for children identified before 12 months of age did not differ from those of later identified children. Conclusions: Systematic screening of newborn hearing results in earlier identification and intervention for children with permanent hearing loss. Superior language outcome following newborn screening was not demonstrable in the setting of this study.

Culturally based miscommunication in classroom interaction

This article identifies a number of ways teachers and students can misunderstand and confuse each other with their language-based communications in the classroom. Cultural variations in the formats...

Bilingual Dialogic Book-Reading Intervention for Preschoolers with Slow Expressive Vocabulary Development.

UNLABELLED This study examined the feasibility of using a dialogic book-reading intervention for 22-41-month-old bilingual preschool children with expressive vocabulary delays. The intervention was provided in English and Spanish concurrently to an experimental group of six children, while six other children were in a delayed treatment control group. Thirty 15-min sessions using dialogic book-reading strategies were provided in each language in the childrens homes, in English by the primary investigator and in Spanish by the childrens mothers, who were trained in the techniques of dialogic book-reading. Results showed that the children in the intervention group learned significantly more target words in each language following the intervention than the children in the control group. The children in the intervention group were also able to produce the acquired words at the time of a follow-up test 6 weeks after the end of the intervention. The gains in the overall vocabulary of the two groups of children did not differ significantly. The childrens mothers expressed satisfaction with the program, and confirmed the benefits of dialogic book-reading for their childrens learning of target words. LEARNING OUTCOMES The current paper describes a unique bilingual vocabulary intervention program for preschool children. Readers will gain an appreciation for the rationale for this intervention, and an insight in the implementation of dialogic book-reading. The main goal of the article is to provide the readers with the evaluation of the feasibility of this intervention.

Transforming classroom discourse: An inuit example

Abstract This paper presents primarily quantitative data regarding forms of classroom discourse and turn allocation that emerged from a larger ethnographic study examining Inuit classroom interactions and discourse patterns in three kindergarten and three first grade Inuit‐taught classrooms in three Ungava Bay communities. The focus is on the transformational effects of the incorporation of culturally‐congruous social interaction patterns and the promotion of traditional values on these two aspects of Inuit classroom conversations. A model of mainstream classroom interactions based on the work of Mehan (1979) is used as a point of comparison to illustrate the extent to which the transformation of discourse has occurred in these six classrooms.

Teachers' Perceptions of the Inclusion of Children With Hearing Loss in General Education Settings

A questionnaire was used to document the attitudes of 63 classroom teachers in Ottawa, Canada, toward inclusive education for students with hearing loss. The objective was to determine whether teachers had the attitudes, knowledge, and teaching skills proposed to underlie the effective inclusion of these students in regular classrooms. It was found that the teachers had favorable attitudes toward inclusion for students with hearing loss, felt confident in their ability to teach them, and were knowledgeable about the effects of hearing loss on language and learning. They also clearly indicated that their teacher education programs had insufficiently prepared them to teach these students effectively. The results highlight the need for increased emphasis on the unique educational requirements of students with hearing loss in teacher education programs, and for the provision of appropriate supports for both teachers and students to promote successful inclusion.

Part of the problem or part of the solution? Communication assessments of Aboriginal children residing in remote communities using videoconferencing

The current article describes the results, inter‐scorer reliability, and potential sources of bias in conducting speech‐language assessments with Aboriginal children in remote Ontario communities using videoconferencing. A main focus of this pilot study was to examine scoring bias, an issue that might arise with videoconferencing for any population but that could potentially interact with test and cultural bias to negatively affect the diagnosis of Aboriginal children. Assessments were administered by a remote‐site speech‐language pathologist (SLP), while an on‐site SLP served as an assistant. Responses were scored simultaneously by both SLPs and the results and their degree of correspondence were compared. Percentage agreement ranged from 96–100% for language tests and from 66–100% for the articulation measure. Results suggest that videoconferencing can be an effective complement to service provision when procedures are organized so as to minimize bias in test administration and in the interpretation of test performance.

Use of simulated patients for a student learning experience on managing difficult patient behaviour in speech-language pathology contexts

A student learning experience about managing difficult patients in speech-language pathology is described. In 2006, 40 students participated in a daylong learning experience. The first part of the experience consisted of presentations and discussions of different scenarios of interpersonal difficulty. The theoretical introduction was followed by an active learning experience with simulated patients. A similar experience without the simulated patients was conducted for 45 students in 2010. Both years of students rated the experience with an overall grade and gave qualitative feedback. There was no significant difference between the overall grades given by the students in 2006 and 2010. The qualitative feedback indicated that the students valued the experience and that they felt it added to their learning and professional development. The students in 2006 also provided detailed feedback on the simulation activities. Students endorsed the experience and recommended that the learning experience be repeated for future students. However, the students in 2006 also commented that they had felt inadequately prepared for interacting with the simulated patients. A learning experience with simulated patients can add to students’ learning. The inclusion of simulated patients can provide a different, but not automatically better, learning experience.

A Concise Protocol for the Validation of Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA) Conversational Turn Counts in Vietnamese

The aim of this study was to present a protocol for the validation of the Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA) System’s conversational turn count (CTC) for Vietnamese speakers. Ten families of children aged between 22 and 42 months, recruited near Ho Chi Minh City, participated in this project. Each child wore the LENA audio recorder for a full day. Two native speakers listened to 10-min extracts of the recordings from each family and labeled conversational turns according to the coding protocol. Their results were compared with the findings from the LENA software. A Spearman rank correlation test indicated a strong level of correlation between the LENA software and the human coders, rs(18) = .70, p < .001. The LENA System’s CTC provides a reasonably accurate estimate of conversational turns in Vietnamese recordings, showing that this protocol can yield significant results. Discrepancies between the coders and the software are discussed, and the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed protocol are highlighted.

Language ENvironment analysis (LENA) system investigation of day long recordings in children: A literature review

The Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA) System is a relatively new recording technology that can be used to investigate typical child language acquisition and populations with language disorders. The purpose of this paper is to familiarize language acquisition researchers and speech-language pathologists with how the LENA System is currently being used in research. The authors outline issues in peer-reviewed research based on the device. Considerations when using the LENA System are discussed.

Using the Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA) System to Investigate Cultural Differences in Conversational Turn Count

Purpose This study investigates how the variables of culture and hearing status might influence the amount of parent-child talk families engage in throughout an average day. Method Seventeen Vietnamese and 8 Canadian families of children with hearing loss and 17 Vietnamese and 13 Canadian families with typically hearing children between the ages of 18 and 48 months old participated in this cross-comparison design study. Each child wore a Language ENvironment Analysis system digital language processor for 3 days. An automated vocal analysis then calculated an average conversational turn count (CTC) for each participant as the variable of investigation. The CTCs for the 4 groups were compared using a Kruskal-Wallis test and a set of planned pairwise comparisons. Results The Canadian families participated in significantly more conversational turns than the Vietnamese families. No significant difference was found between the Vietnamese or the Canadian cohorts as a function of hearing status. Conclusions Culture, but not hearing status, influences CTCs as derived by the Language ENvironment Analysis system. Clinicians should consider how cultural communication practices might influence their suggestions for language stimulation.